All Theories Are Part of The Theory of Information

This is a Monday morning brain dump to get the juices going. 

"Contingencies" is a difficult concept to fully elaborate in a useful manner.  A contingent thing- an event, a structure, a set of information - is such a thing by the fact that it has no existence outside of its contingent relationships.  In some sense it's the age old rhetorical question, "if a tree falls in a forest and no one is around does it make a noise?"    The key in that question is "noise."  Noise is a contingent concept in both the common sense idea as well as any physical sense.  Sound (and other sensory concepts) is contingent in that there must be a relation between the waves/particles (and their possible sources) and an observer.  Without the observer one cannot classify/name/label a sound, a sound.  A sound literally is the effect on the observer.  Hopefully that is a useful introduction to a basic idea of contingency. 

The definitions muddy considering contingency in a deeper and broader way such as in discussing human behavior or economics.  Over the eons humans have attempted to create and codify contingencies.  The codification is really more an attempt to reduce the noisy complication of the wider universe into acceptable and useful contingencies (laws, rules, guidelines, best practices, morals, ethics, social norms, standards, etc).  The sciences and humanities also codify but wrap these efforts in slicker packages of "discovering the natural laws" and figuring out "how to best live." 

These published codifications are NOT the contingencies they purport to represent but they are contingent in of themselves.  In these broader contexts contingencies refer to and are part of a complex network of relationships.  Expounded as physical or chemical models or philosophic frameworks or first order logics or computer programs all of these systems are contingent systems in the sense of their basis in previous systems, relations to associated phenomena and the substrate of their exposition and execution.  A computer programs representation of information and its utility as a program is highly contingent on the computer hardware it runs on, the human language it's written in, the compiler logic used to encode it for the computer, the application of the output, and so on.

The latest science in computer theory, social sciences, neuroscience, quantum physics and cosmology (and chemistry....) have somewhat converged onto very thorny (challenging to the intuition) ideas of super positions, asymmetry/symmetry, networks (neural and otherwise) and a more probabilistic mathematics.  These are all models and sciences of contingency and essentially an unified theory of information which in turn is a unified theory of networks/graphs (or geometry for the 19th centurions).  The core idea/phenomena for these ideas being useful explanations at is one of missing information and how reliable of probabilistic statements can be made about contingent things (events, objects, etc.). 

The components of the models that are sometimes employed in these theories involve Bayesian models, assumption of the real/actual existence of space and time and concepts of simple logic ("if then") and other first order logic concepts.  These are often chosen as building blocks because of their obvious common sense/human intuitional connection.  However, upon inspection even these assumptions add a layer that is severely off from the actual contingencies being studied and these building block assumptions are also highly contingent in of themselves.  The "model reality distance" and the "contingent in of themselves"ness quickly, exponentially explodes the relevance of the model.   

Consider even a basic notion of "if then" type thinking/statements in a cross substrate contingent situation - such as a simple computer program running on a basic, common computer.  A program as simple as "if X equals 1 then print 'The answer is definitely 1!'.  X = 1 + .0000000000000000000000000001" is going to print the THEN statement even though it's logically, symbolically not true (a human can obviously tell).  (The program in ALL CASES should print nothing at all, logically speaking.  Practically (in the world of daily life) the program prints the statement and everything is "ok", on average).  The abstract "if then" statement is contingent on the substrate that implements/executes/interprets it (the computer OS and hardware).  The contingencies build up from there (the language one implements the statement in matters, the ability of any observer or implementing entity to understand left to right notation, mathematical statements, variable replacement, etc). 

An important note: these issues of contingency ARE NOT further If Then statements.  That is, we cannot resolve the short coming of If Then thinking to just needing to build up all of the If Then statements.  The If and the Then and their references they are checking as IF (what's the X we're testing if it's the X) and the Then and it's command suffer from this infinite regress of the original simple if then statement we question!  How does anything definitely say X is in fact the thing the statement/logic is checking for?

The main idea here is that in all ideas of modeling or identifying contingencies information goes missing or the information was never to be had to begin with. This is a key convergent finding in mathematics (incompleteness theorem, chaos theory), computer science (halting program, computational irreducibility, p != np), quantum physics (uncertainty principle) and biology (complexity theory) and statistics (Bayesian models, statistics, etc).  How important that missing/unknown information to a situation is contingent on the situation at hand - what is the tolerance of error/inaccuracy.  In the case of high frequency economic trading, the milliseconds and trade amounts matter a lot.  In shooting a basketball, there's a fairly large tolerance margin of mismodeling.  Very noticing the Higgs Boson the margin of tolerance is almost Planck length (smallest physical distance we know of...).  The development of probability theory allows us to make useful statements about contingent situations/things.  The more we can observe similarly behaving/existing contingent things the more useful our probability models become.  EXCEPT... Sometimes not.  The Black Swan.

If Then and similar logic models of thinking are insufficient as explanatory reference frames.  Per the above they simply do not account for the rich effects of very small amounts of missing information or mis-information.  Which brings us to the other building blocks almost universally used in science - space and time.  These are robust common sense and in some cases scientific concepts, but they are not fundamental (in that they cannot escape being contingent in of themselves).  Time is contingent on observers and measuring devices - it literally is the observable effect of information encoding between contingent events, it does not have an independent existence.  Space is more difficult to unwind than time in that it is a very abstract concept of relative "distance" between things.  This is a useful concept even at the lowest abstraction levels.  However space, as physical space, is not fundamental.  Instead space should be reconciled as a network distance between contingent subnetworks (how much of an intervening network need to be activated to relate two subnetworks).  Spacetime is the combined, observable (yet RELATIVE to the contingent) distance in total information between contingent things (events, objects, etc). 

This is important!  Accepting common notions of If Then logic and spatio temporal elements prevents the convergence of explanatory models (which if the are really explanatory of reality should converge!).  A unified notion of spacetime as information distance between networks brings together  theory of behavior, learning, neural networks, computer science, genetics etc with quantum mechanics and cosmology.  The whole kit and kaboodle.  It also explains why mathematics continues to be unusually effective in all sciences... Mathematics is a descriptive symbolic a of relations and contingency.  Converging all theories upon a common set of building blocks does not INVALIDATE those theories and models in their utility nor does it make them unnecessary.  Quite the opposite.  Information IS the question at hand and HOW it is encoded is exactly what contingencies are embodied as.  Humans as humans, not as computers, are what we study in human behavior.  So we need theories of human behavior.  Planets, atoms, computers, numbers, ants, proteins, and on and on all have embodied contingencies that explanation requires be understood in nuanced but connected ideas.

Once enough models of the relations of contingent things are encoded in useful ways (knowledge! Computer programs/simulations/4d printing!!) spacetime travel becomes more believable... Not like 1950s movies, but by simulation and recreated/newly created ever larger universes with their own spacetime trajectories/configurations.  That's fun to think about, but actually is a much more serious point.  The more information that is encoded between networks (the solar system and humans and their machines, etc) the less spacetime (per my above definition) is required to go from one subnetwork of existence (planet earth and humanity) to another (Mars and martinity), etc.  A deep implication here is an answer to why there is a speed of light (a practical one) and whether that can be broken (it can, and has http://time.com/4083823/einstein-entanglement-quantum/).  The speed of light is due to the contingencies between massive networks - anything more sophisticated than a single electron etc has such a huge set of contingencies that to be "affected" by light or anything else enough those effects must affect the contingencies too.  This is the basis of spacetime, how much spacetime is engaged in "affecting" something.

This is not a clever, scifi device nor a semantic, philosophic word play.  Information and network theory are JUST beginning and are rapidly advancing both theoretically (category theory, info theory, graph theory, PAC, etc) and practically (deep learning, etc).  Big data and machine learning/deep learning/learning theory are going to up looking EXACTLY like fundamental physics theory - all theories of getting by with missing information or a limit to what can be known by any entity smaller than all the universe.  To the universe - the universe is the grand unified theory and explanation are unnecessary.

The Reverence of Snails

This is a cliche story, you've been alerted. It's a small story of existential angst, a mountain out of a molehill.

We have pet snails.  I'd say my daughter has pet snails but my rules say that whomever does the cleaning also gets to claim parents pride.   Yes, I do the cleaning of the snails just as I used to clean up after all the family dogs and then graduated into the diaper czar for my own kids.   I could probably write some Freudian thesis about why I end up cleaning up shit/abhor shit but that's for another day. Today's story is about life and purpose, not shit.

Our household awoke simply, nothing awry other than my stuffed up left nostril.  I laid up longer than usual avoiding acknowledgement of the days tasks.   Prone, CNN in the background, I read some pages in a book about artists as art, not their actual art as their art.  It is a slow book with mildly entertaining but mostly selfish ideas.  And so the procrastination ran its course and I brewed some espresso.  There was work to be done.

The aquarium sooted and slimed up from weeks of snails snailing lurked in my daughter's room.  It took me a long time to cross the room and approach my duty.  The espresso had not quite done it's own work and my eyes hadn't yet come online - a blur of fatherly motion.  In the kitchen, clean soil obtained from storage, I unhinged the snail habitats lid. Lots of little globules threatened my morning.  And then life hit me in the face doing what espresso couldn't - a revelation.

"GUYS GET IN HERE!  GET YOUR MOTHER!"

Various feet made their way to the kitchen with slightly frightened looks draping their faces. 

"WE HAVE SNAIL BABIES!  LOTS OF THEM,"  horrification gasped out of me.   

Cute little creatures, shells barely solidified, roamed the vast landscape of their birth.  The strategy of their lives unfurled - a strategy of quantity and swiftness.   In an unimaginably short time we went from having 3 lethargic adult snails binge watching lettuce wilt to having a hundreds strong legion of translucent, vibrant survivalists.   

[The strategy is beautiful.  In the darkness of night when your parents are asleep not paying attention hatch as many youngbloods as possible and let them scatter as they form households around their bodies.   

The strategy is also sad, in a way.  It is a strategy the assumes death.   The strategy was not chosen but it was selected for snails by the consequences of the natural world over time.  It's a confusing, and not human-like, strategy for species survival where the species, the colony and the individual are in a very different dance than humanity's.  The strategy is very successful - land snails have been figuring out the world for over 350 million years, sea snails for much longer.  So many things about snails are terribly clever and interesting and gorgeous and affirming.  

see http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK10074/ :  "First, the cleavage planes are not parallel or perpendicular to the animal-vegetal axis of the egg; rather, cleavage is at oblique angles, forming a “spiral” arrangement of daughter blastomeres. Second, the cells touch one another at more places than do those of radially cleaving embryos. In fact, they assume the most thermodynamically stable packing orientation, much like that of adjacent soap bubbles. Third, spirally cleaving embryos usually undergo fewer divisions before they begin gastrulation, making it possible to follow the fate of each cell of the blastula."  

also consider that snails have no gender for a given individual (any given snail has both sets of reproductive organs) and all can lay eggs after mating.  Courting mates is all by touch and sliming each other.* ]

We couldn't maintain a habitat with hundreds of snails.  As the cleaner, my task deepened. First, we all had to come to grips with parting ways.  My wife and I moved quickly knowing that attachment grows quicker than even a snail - once a name comes to mind a bond forms.   I announced the plan immediately. I was to release the snails into the pseudo-wild of the protected marshes here in Marina Del Rey and let nature play its games.  We would retain two babies.

"Pumpkin, is that one's name."

And a child was born.

I prepared mentally and physically arming myself with paper towels, cups of water, and a small spoon.  The spoon would be the official vehicle of snail freedom.   Marching in the bright, winter sun I noticed people and their dogs and their kids.   I noticed leaves and cars and a trace of clouds.  I noticed the smell of streets and the line of ants.  I spotted an opening in the fence in which to escape and release my prisoners.   

The Snail Freedom Site

The ground considerably drier than the lush soil of the habitat seemed a downgrade as far as conditions go.  Ants overran the bristling leaves and dusty dirt, busy with their nation building.  Would these ants attack these refugees?   Would the ants' changing paths signal predators I could not see?   How many ants and snails and microbes did I squish underfoot en route?  how many strategies did I unlock in these efforts?   what contingent responses unfurled upon my shoes and my skin?  did the parents of all these babies sense anything with their slime disconnecting with every spoonful I poured onto the earth?

I covered the emptied soil with the found natural debris.  It was gravelike - a mound, but concealed.  An opportunity to commune while disappearing into a different world.   Disruptive but giving.

When I glared up at the sun from that life-giving graveyard it struck me that reverence, even in glossy cliche, is a life-affirming.  The world is contingent, full of competing strategies for survival, full of sacrifice and contradicting stances of individualism and society of creation and destruction - and all gradients in between.  No species lives in isolation, no individual of a species lives independent of the backs of others, no species is above or below.   I could not avoid the destruction of all the snails babies nor the hundreds of insects and other organisms I probably killed on my cliche ritual of setting pets free.  But I can live in reverence of their being, humbled by their place in this world, and my shared place.  It is my responsibility to honor them.  This story honors the lovely, little snails and their ability to turn celery into spiraled shells.   

Wholly Inconsistent or Another Theory of The Drone or How Learning Leads to Terrible Things or Becoming Human, Again.

Author's Note:

This essay may require extended vocabulary and attention not available to readers depending on their current environment and access method.  The author recommends taking a deep breath and composing the body for a period of concentration.  The author recognizes this may be an investment without a monetary return and thus should not be done by those who literally measure time as money.

We - in general as the social, language, and art prone human species - profess ideas to test them with an audience - first our own self as the audience, then others.  If the experiments succeed by not getting us into serious trouble - however we perceive trouble - we integrate the response feedback into our bodies but not necessarily the "the truth" of the professed ideas.  For the most part we don't understand and appreciate thoughts, words, pictographs and any resulting behaviors as correlate and not equivalent.  We confuse coincidence of expression with consequences - this is a side effect of phenomena of learning.  Learning and adaption is a wonderful ability but also has terrible consequences if not constantly re-evaluated and embodied in a direct, real, physical engagement with the world.

The Profession of Politics and Its Goals

The dissonance of thought to behavior is politics and it thrives on the lack of critical, embodied thinking.  Politics cannot be anything other than the complete mis-association of rhetoric -> external truth and bodies -> accidental outliers.  Politics does not exist outside of that notional association.

(Some readers tend to prefer examples of the professed logic in action: When a brain/body combination that does not include direct attachment of a uterus [the most common "male" body] that brain/body combination can only speak and legislate about the fate of uteruses [the most common "female" body] from a false belief in truth beyond the uterus. A non-uterus bearing body has almost zero claim to actual knowledge about uteruses.)

(("male" and "female" are quoted above due to the fact that even those gender dichotomies are politicking.))

The feedback loop of political existence leads to a partially consistent experience of the world for individuals and groups of individuals.  This partially consistent experience involves the brutal destruction of life and liberty which must be professed away for those the politicking individuals and groups to continue to exist.  It cannot work any other way for the mis-associated politicians. As long as consistency is the external truth above all ideas and efforts the mis-associated thoughts->behaviors->consequences must be made to be consistent by any means necessary, including but not limited to, ignoring new consequential data, cutting off new perceptive pathways, and forming logical infrastructure that reinforces the ignorance.

(Some readers, but not necessarily the same readers referenced in the first parenthetical note, may desire more direct language.  Politics only aim is for its own survival.  A political entity does not have as its goal anything other than the thriving of the political entity.  All political systems - education, government, religion, corporations, an online social network - exist by mis-associating their rhetoric (the things people profess) with real world behavioral consequences (the things people actually do).  The mis-associations must be propped up with logical frameworks like political theory, economics, etc to make sure that only the data that supports the politic is perceivable and integrated.

The logical frameworks directly extend into technology - the technology is the body to the mind of the logical framework.  This is why we - as the American industrial-military-education complex - use drones more and more to do our killing, our delivering, our manual labor, our financial transacting and more and more our learning.  The drones disembody us from the world and ensure that our political activity can be fully consistent in its logic of mind-body duality and eternal truth - "the body was not harmed during the making of this politic." 

Another example, the "likes" and "pins" and "favorites" drive the eternal truth of the online feed that drives the embodied feeling that something actually happened during the reposting and liking of a thing that someone, possibly a drone, originally authored and posted.  And now the billions of dollars made from the liking of all the droned online behavior will be dispersed into more political survival of the liked activity.  {{Apologies to some readers for the last sentence in which irony and subtly was deployed as a test of concentration and ability to cogitate on recent events in the world and possible relations to this text.}}

One more example may be appreciated: fiat currency/modern money.  State backed (which is really just military might backed) money is one of the original technologies to embody a partially consistent, logical framework of disembodiment.  State created and backed anonymous currency - paper currency - turned non-anonymous electronic system of credits and debts used to exchange goods and services and ultimately to has as its sole aim to maintain the survivability of the state/entity backing the currency. The value of an exchange is not directly the goods or services exchanged and their embodied effect on the exchangers but rather the currency value over time of that exchange.  Two keys to the logical framework of that technology and its disembodied false associations of real value: the original anonymity encourages exchange activity and once that activity is sufficiently high the anonymous becomes known through ledgers.  Ledgers - records of debts and credits - becomes the controlling device of which political rhetoric survives - which exchangers of goods and services survive and which fail according to who best serves the backing politic.  It turns out, the more disembodied the exchangers the more the backing politic wants and needs them.  {Strange financial only entities, insurers, lobbying entities}

)

This political existence becomes its own destruction - once the politic completely disembodies its political members and becomes the ultimate, eternal truth of its own making - pure rhetoric - the bodies die and can no longer give themselves up to the rhetoric.  A political system as such has only one possible avoidance of that fate - to create new bodies (repeaters of the logics) that do not die in their total disembodiment of the contingent world.  The current non-aware computers and drones are excellent candidates for such bodies.

Critically Embodied Activity

Critical thought is an embodied behavior - it is wholly of the body and the body's immanent environment mashed with its lossy memory.  No thought, an "inner" thought or outwardly expressed blabbation, is independent of the body of the thinker and the contingent environment.  In opposition to the political the critical has embodiment as its aim - not consistency.  Embodiment does not have rhetorical eternal truth at its core.  Embodiment embraces the illogic of the immanent and does not force a logical, technical framework on the world.

Critical embodiment is not an active resistance but it is responsive engagement.  The activity of critical embodiment makes no claims about truth or of truth.  However, when supported by embodied evidence critical thinking does make claims against truth.  In this regard critically embodied engagement with the world is wholly inconsistent - it moves between the illogic of contingent relations  - between bodies and the expelled ideas/expressions of bodies - resisting resolution when the resolution is unwarranted by traces of non-equivalency.  Critical embodiment embraces contingent sustainability over eternal thriving of rhetorical truths.  There is nothing to seek but everything in its embodied, contingent engagement. 

(Some readers, who have made it this far, likely request a reprieve from possible solipsisms and the boring academic tone.  Basically there's an existential battle between the political and the critical - the rhetorical and the physical - the talkers and the doers - the Platonists and the hippies - the idea of eternal, absolute truths and a completely contingent reality. 

Far from a binary world, this battle is a gradient, a balance between the various extremes.  Both extremes EXIST but both extreme's are not the truth and one of the extreme views/ways of being is not survivable by its very definition... hint: political systems and rhetoric.)

Political systems and their technologies (all technology really) are based on the notion of eternal truth - there is absolute morality, predictability and control, absolute justice, right/wrong, good/bad, equality and inequality, equivalences.

Critical thinking involves assuming no eternal truths and behaving accordingly - always engaged in awareness and learning more.  Critical thinking seeks to guard against the misfires of learning - the mis-association of coincidental expressions, events and histories.  It does this directly by questioning everything, including itself and any of its methods.  Critical thinking is of the body - of the physical world.  It has no aims only flow of awareness from one embodied activity to another.

Art, crafts, swimming, writing, theater, climbing, foraging, campfires.... and an endless stream of touching the world activities are critical activities.  As is discussion, conversation, socializing, eye gazing and all other manners of connecting through various perceptive modes in the flesh.  To be embodied in anothers world... non-linear, non rhetorical activities.  The stuff of living.)

The Critical Question

The political cannot survive if humanity is to survive.  Political systems must always be temporary, local activities that dissolve as soon as they terminally disembody their members.  Politics is disembodiment - that is its activity, not just its aim.  It must divorce the ideas from the body in order to direct the flow of bodily resources (labor into military into property into currency into technology...).

Political systems and the profession of politics are an unavoidable emergent side effect of a hyper-aware, social, learning species.  Politics arise from the very tools selected for in humans by evolution - pattern recognition, language and tool making.  However, when left unchecked by a critical, embodied engagement with the physical world it destroys the human and the collective activity labeled humanity. 

The ultimate end outcome of total politics is non-aware drones extinguishing whatever humanity remains through bodily destruction and disembodied take over of drones droning with other drones - a convergence of high-technology, total belief in binary, eternal truth, and self-perpetuation of prediction and control.

There exists a near endless stream of empirical and logical evidence that establishing the unknowability and uncontrollability of anything but the most simple (non-contingent) objects and systems.  The political profession in its devotion to eternal truth simply ignores this embodied evidence - it must or cede its existence. Whether in America or other countries, nation states the political exercise of humanity is lost in endless droned based violence or mass mediated drone-like human activity.  Even the revolutionary movements in behavior and outcome have become almost indistinguishable from the political systems they revolt against.  It can be no other way if the basic premise of any activity is a rhetorical, disembodied approach. 

It is now a critical moment.  Dronity or Humanity?

(Here's a bone for the exhausted reader... a short summary:  The revolution will be televised, on Youtube on an iPhone watched by a drone.)

Becoming Human

It is unclear how to define humanity or what it means to be a human... exactly.  Humanity lacks definition, as does any living thing, precisely because it is living... contingently, complexly in the real world.  It's undefinability is its existence. 

Learning in an individual living entity is an extension of evolution - the responsive, embodied selection by consequences.  Learning has an existential danger in that its very utility can confuse the learner with false coincidental evidence and shrinking of the perceptive toolkit - learning can literally fold into itself.

The antidote to eternal death is critically embodied living where even the most deeply learned patterns are unlearned by learners as individuals and learners collectively.  This makes for a most certain failure of politics and eternal rhetoric.  The undefinition and unbecoming of humanity into a forever immanently renewed humanity may not win over the transcendence of a frozen in eternal truth dronity. And it may not matter to a quickly evolving dronity. 

(for the dearest of readers who made it to the end: For the few of us humans who'd like to smell the ocean and watch the sunsets and touch the grass, it would be nice if we renewed our embodiment with the world.)

The Long Delay

Human history has a long arc, but a relatively short tipping point towards the illusion of control.  We were for nearly unimaginable expanses of time and space a barely connected species roaming the earth, leaving slight traces in earthy pigment of hands, animals and dreams upon the rocks of our paths and the cave walls of our temporary dwellings.  We were not dominant, mass-farming, tool wielding empires - we were nomads and temporary players in a grand kaleidoscope of Earth.  Our existence was never guaranteed day to day nor over the centuries.

This changed rather rapidly and without some divine intervention - the blind watchmaking of natures evolution accidentally favored homo sapiens.  We happened onto fattened and readily plantable wheat in soil freshly fertile from melting ice ages giving rise to agriculture and related activities.  We relatively quickly took deep advantage of the situation (multiple times independently across the globe).  Agriculture and animal husbandry provided all the obvious advantages for survival like reliable food sources, ability to stay put, deep energy stories, safety and time for knowledge seeking.  The key stroke though was in being able to delay consequences. 

Long Delay entered the human enterprise for the likely the first time.  We were able to delay starvation through reliable, storable harvests.  We were able to build up settlements, trade routes, currency and complicated economic exchange, and, ultimately, we could "plan" for the future.  The idea of A Human Future had deep consequences for our belief systems - that is, our association of what happened in the world and why and how we were part of it.  Without an idea of a future, as realized by reliably imagining one and living to see it realized, there was no sense in having the belief of destiny nor dominion nor property.  A world without delay and of only immediate consequences is one outside of time and outside of storing up - storing up resources, storing up frustrations, storing up weaponry, storing up ideas.    In a nomadic, temporary world - to store is to encumber and to encumber is to be too slow to keep on.

In almost all accounts of big, long history agriculture and its resultant consequences is reverently viewed for all that it enabled.  The great spread of human civilization - its tooling, its trading, its Metal Ages, its science, its culture.  While these are all interesting and complex phenomena, they aren't necessarily good nor are they necessarily bad.  They certainly have produced an incredible proliferation of humanity for many tens of thousands of years.  And they've also come with extreme consequences for humans and non-humanity alike. 

The ability to delay consequences and harbor resources for science and tools and culture also provides those resources for warring, tribalism, weaponry, radicalized ideologies.  Oddly the delayed consequences have a downside that more false beliefs/non-true ideas about how reality works can fester unchecked.  For a Neolithic person a non-true assessment of a situation would likely carry grave consequences.  In the modern world, where most immediate needs for survival are assumed, especially in the West, a person can carry extremely non-true ideas about how reality works and what their place is in the world for decades.  And this is at the root of our current confused and violent situation.

Humans have warmed the planet possibly passed the point of being able to reverse course before there are dire consequences for humans and non-humans.  Humans have killed of an incredible number of species before they knew those species even existed.  Humans cure illness and disease and pests only to unleash unintended stronger adversarial viruses, bacteria and pests.  Humans craft new computational tools and methods with almost no thought to possible downstream uses.  Humans social and civil organization is now dominated by the wealthiest even in its most praised form of Democracy. 

Often all these pessimistic observations are rebuffed with the 100 year old idea of "Creative Destruction."  That is, eventually we end up solving all these things and this is just the natural course of a free market of progress.  It is also constantly remarked that we live in the lowest violence era in human history.  These rebuttals are really just more consequence of Long Delays.  Most of us do not live to see the consequences of these complex contingency chains we set in motion.  We are never put to task for our false predictions, category errors, and misassociation blunders.

Our religions, all the major monotheistic ones, are all about pushing consequences into the "next life."  Our popular moral philosophies typically justify various activities on the rather weak argument about doing it "for our children."  We insure, amortize, capital expense, socially secure, in-debt, mortgage for generations into the future.    All done because we've falsely assumed (or at least not proven to be absolutely true) that somehow, some way it all works out.  We can't even define what that working out would be except within our own delayed, selfish terms - does each of our own families and our own heritage and our own way of life carry on. 

We do not live in a less violent time - we have pushed the violence into the future and out of immediate human physicality.  We've hidden our brutality of this world in our technology and our obsessions with new media.  The most popular video game on the planet is Call of Duty - multiple billions of dollars in revenue.  As our world virtualizes more and more how will we all distinguish the violence in that reality from real violence?  We've ravaged our oceans with pollution and heat and they are rising.  We've fracked the Earth into earthquakes in middle America.  A huge chunk of the Wests GDP goes towards weaponizing - not education and end of life care.  Our sense of identity and place in this world has gone haywire - racism and sexism is still rampant. That terrorism still works is a proof point.  Terror doesn't need thousands of beheadings - just a few and a lot of YouTube views.  Militaries don't need millions of troops in lines razing each other down, just thousands joystick controllers flying drones.  Violence evolved in the resource of delay we provide it.

What repugnant, bizarre thread ensnares almost all of us in these violent delayed consequences?  Shame.  We are all shaming each other for not responding to the same consequences.  The delayed consequences act like a microphone and speaker in the shrieking feedback loop.  The complexity of delayed abuse is doubling back and echoing on top.  We can't cure all suffering, so please cure mine.  We shame each other into more mental abuse of ourselves so that we are incapacitated.  In this shame we trigger the worse natures of ourselves - we lash out in the dark fog of delayed consequences.  We hit anything in front of us we can just to feel something now, feel anything now.  We are ashamed all those future plans and stored up resources didn't real free us as we assumed and passed on.  We are ashamed to be ashamed - so we still treat different skin less worthy unable to admit our shame.

The arc of human history is long but most of it was before we began our short descent into delayed awareness. And here it is.  The only hope. To be here now.  To recognize now, not in the delayed future that isn't yours nor mine, we were wrong.  We will always be wrong.  When we decide we have answers or we decide to store more than what is needed for now - we wrong something else that has just as much right to existence as we do.  Our shameful fight for the righteous, controllable future is what destroys the now for us and the future for others.

Resources for further consideration:

The Ascent of Man, J. Brownoski

The Origin of the Species, Darwin

Sex, Time and Power, Leonard Shlain

Guns, Germs and Steel, J. Diamond

Ishmael, D. Quinn

30,000 Years of Art, Phaidon

Cave of Forgotten Dreams (movie), W. Herzog

Between The World and Me, T. Coates

The Communist Hypothesis, Alain Badiou

The Silence of Animals, J. Gray

Matter and Memory, Henri Bergson

Beyond Freedom and Dignity, BF Skinner

Plato at the Googleplex, R Goldstein

I Am A Strangeloop, D. Hofstader

Better Angels of Our Nature, S Pinker

Making Money, O. Berg

Property is Theft, Proudhon

The Blind Watchmaker

The Selfish Gene, R Dawkins

anything by Martha Nussbam

and about a thousand other resources.  I borrow language and ideas from all of them, perhaps, occasionally adding something new.

To Be Or Not To Be

Timeless reality marches on carelessly smearing existence upon itself.  Humans have been at war with nature and themselves for at least as long as there were enough humans to consider their own survival.  Transcendence hasn't come and won't come without a total absolution of what humans have come to define as humanity - the very notion of humans is one of dominance, manifest destiny, borders, dominion, mastery - ultimately to be Human is to actively Stake Claim Over Existence.

The cruel, thoughtless stroke of evolution was accidentally mutating a species with a biological advantage suited to terraforming. Humanity is a species who long ago deluded itself into believing its selfish survival depends on its ability to transform the world, not be transformed by it.  The selfish gene, in total success, morphs into the selfish species - a species that seeks its own survival at all costs.  So repugnant the thought, it is never uttered in even non-polite company -  that is... the Species As It Is Today Is Perhaps Not Perfect To Rule The Planet and All Planets.  Humanity always builds the metaphorical ark and loads the existence it collectively believes is correct.  And in this ark humanity remains largely unchanged, rarely aware, attempting to stack the deck in its short range physical favor - to defeat nature by being above it.  And to what purpose?  what end?  other than, that's how it must be.

To be, or not to be!  That really is the question.  The selfish species has almost always chosen Not To Be.  Humanity chooses Not To Be in concert with the nature and the purposeless, yet soulful tapestry of existence.  It chooses Not To Be a medium of existence and chooses To Be a raging deity building up its own existence at the destruction existence.  Humanity Stakes Claim by unstaking everything else.

Blasphemy!  Nihilism!  Those are the thoughts of many who will read this.  Hater of life!  Hater of existence!  Which, of course, is completely the anti-thesis of a position of restraint, of an observant and meditative non-position.  A meditative position is one of perpetual openness and one of non-believing, non-truth, non-brand, non-ideology, non-decisions, non-human.  "Non" is the scary part to humans, particularly those humans raised in a Western and/or a religious doctrine of any kind.  The entire idea of civilization, personhood, society, intelligence, religion is a reification of Humanity as a fundamental thing of the universe.  This is the biggest, most fateful delusion of all.

It's near impossible to break free from Humanity As The Source of Existence.  Probably so improbable this break in absolute doctrine humanity will accidentally but totally complete its program - humanity has already crafted the necessary tools of the ultimate Terraform: distributed ledgers, virtual reality and generative manufacturing.  Humanity as a physical species is now completely unnecessary, so total its staking claim over reality.  And then there's this other staking claim out there... one in which the physics still matter to some, but it's no less completely destructive.  This claim is the one of distributed, ancient physical violence married to 24/7 mediation through global hyperconnectivity.  These are the two mainstream humanities.  They are weirdly at odds and yet totally syncopated: in a strangely grotesque Not To Be dance they both are dancing humanity to its final end - the complete distraction of claim staking species that's staked so many claims its oceans will overwhelm all.  As part of that distraction there are those humans of all humanity staking out Human Technology Will Save Us Yet Again.  To Mars!  The Sharing Economy unto the autonomous everything!  Drones To Deliver The Food and The Bombs!

A dark, dim view?  Yes, of the two dominant humanities.  Getting beyond the ultimately limiting humanism and into non-humanism lightness of being can be found.  Existence itself, all around humans and nature alike, is beautiful, wonderful, awesome, unflinching and distinctly Non-Human.  A higher engagement in existence through transformation and transduction - living through existence, not in-spite of it.  To become, to always be-coming into new relations - never clinging to old relations, old terraformed hierarchies.  Relenting and restraining from being the cause and instead becoming affected. 

It is an unlikely future for the human species.  the dominant humanities program Not To Be.

some of us will non-program To Be. Always something else - part of a shifting tapestry of existence.

am I OK? a remark on authenticity.

am I OK?

This is the question I get asked the most nowadays.   Certainly when posts online stop being predominantly jokes about the NFL or filtered photos of babies doing funny stuff and start being drippy, gloopy bullshit painted rectangles with captions like “exist. I. do. not.” the question sort of begs itself.   That and the bizarro, yet totally cliche, year that from age 38 to 39 turned out to be… a seemingly constant drip of great news followed by shit news… you tend to reshape your expression a bit.

This is a #selfie of #you

But that’s really not what the question is about, right?

The question “am I OK?” is about authenticity and freedom and sincerity or rather the lack thereof.  Our hyperconnected world and our American society’s obsession with brand awareness led to this confused and in-authentic mediation between people (and machines.)   Listing all the causes of the mass delusion of what I’ll call the brand of My of Endless Happiness (M.E.H.: the American Dream!) is a waste of energy (as mathematicians do listing trivial causes is left as an exercise to the reader.)    

MEH has us all engaged in small talk, trivia and endless duckfaced happy posts from all the fun things we’re doing instead of communicating.  MEH has us all outraged at the outrages we all share (death and taxes from Presidents!) - those things that are mostly removed from us and outside our direct control - instead of VOTING.  MEH has us big box shopping on Black Fridays and Cyber Mondays and whining about credit card bills in January instead of MAKING THINGS FOR EACH OTHER.   MEH has us reading Fifty Shades rather than, well, GETTING IT ON.

and so on without so-ing on!

No, I’m not OK!  OK is MEH.  OK is eating Bennigan's left overs watching Game of Thrones binging while playing Angry Birds (that’s a madlib, insert your own CHAIN RESTAURANT, POPULAR TV, FAVORITE PHONE APP).    

OK is watching GOP circus debates and ranting online while passing up the last 6 local election cycles because INSERT EXCUSE.   

OK is ok, it’s normal.   It’s buzzed but not drunk nor sober.  It’s brohugs and not embraces or yoddles/chants.   It’s regrams of misquoted inspiration not climbing that mountain 5 miles from your house.   It’s watching TV not playing jazz with friends.   It’s OK not GREAT!  AMAZING!   FUCKING PISSED!   BUMMED!   DEVASTATED!   ENGAGED!   

And it’s ok.   It’s perfectly ok to want OK.   It’s OK to be ok.  Sometimes, ok is exactly where to be.  Sometimes it’s 100x better than not-OK.   

Am I OK?   Maybe.  Sometimes.  here and there.   

Above all, I’m trying to engage.  That’s it.  Chasing experience.  Being a Maker and Doer rather than an mostly an observer and critic.   

Am I sad?   sometimes.  People die.  People get sick.  People hurt.  Animals hurt.  The world and life is hard.   

Am I desperate?  always.  Desperate to exist.  Desperate to renew my own agency.

Am I depressed?  sometimes.   Self diagnosis is generally a bad idea, but I can tell you, yes, I have been and do get depressed and darkness descends.   And the times when it does… as far as I can tell it’s because I’m sitting there OK.  and letting life happen to me.

Am I drunk?  sometimes.   sometimes more than others!   probably more than I should be in quantity and quality.

Am I happy? not that often, but at least once a week.   There’s two kinds of happiness, generally, to me.  True joy… usually that’s experiencing something awesome with others.  and then the little happiness… an espresso on Sunday mornings reading the NYTimes Book Review. (though that might actually be True Joy!).

Am I having fun? YES!   Fun isn’t tickling and playing tag, though that is fun to do.  FUN! is trying To Become Something, fun is Trying To Become A Person.  Fun is being so bad at something you have to do it every single day unending to see even a shred of better than truly terrible at that something.   

Am I Trying to be An Artist?  No.   Such a limited label, IMHO.   I hate labels.

Am I Trying to be a Philosopher?  Yes!   But only for a limited time.  Philosophers like Politicians make poor career titles… the idea of making a career (bring home the bacon) out of something that literally should be blowing up careers seems like a recipe for MEH.

Am I Trying to have a Career in Anything?   No.  I have tattoos on my hands (the things i use to DO STUFF) to remind myself of Information Destiny.  Everything is Information.    I am trying to Inform My Being. Always.

Am I Authentic?   No.   I’m trying.  Each day I’m trying more and more to authentically engage myself and the world.  

Am I Free?  No.   None of us can ever be free of contingencies.  I think Authenticity and Freedom go together.   And they are a process, not an end point.

Do I Want My Endless Happiness?  No, absolutely not under any terms do I want MEH.   I do not seek happiness at the expense of authenticity/freedom.   Life is life (ugh, tautologies…)   life is struggle and competition and birth and death and growth and shrinkage and change and stasis and highs and lows.   It’s hurt and joy.   It’s fast food and gourmet.  Literally life exists on the border - the jagged blurry line - of order and chaos.

So to answer your question, no I’m not ok.  Are you?

A Dialog (between friends) on The Law of the Conservation of Computation

Russell [8:16 AM] 
This is happening to programs and programming too. http://www.worksonbecoming.com/thoughts-prefaces/2015/10/1/this-is-contingency

Some Works
This is contingency
Remarks on the contingency of new forms and the phenemenon of replication.

Schoeller [8:16 AM] 
Very NKS.

Schoeller [8:17 AM]
I’m somewhat less certain of this outcome than you — it relies heavily on everyone playing nice and working with each other.

Russell [8:18 AM] 
That's just you.

Schoeller [8:18 AM] 
Which is challenging — witness the web API boom/bust of 5 years ago.

Russell [8:18 AM] 
The arc of assimilation is clear

Schoeller [8:18 AM] 
It’s the pragmatism/skepticism in me.

Russell [8:19 AM] 
Most humans almost 6.997 billion of them have no idea about computers

Schoeller [8:19 AM] 
I get it. But the pace of progress can be furiously slow in the face of economics.

Schoeller [8:19 AM]
For instance — where’s my flying car?

Schoeller [8:20 AM]
We’re not going to have networked 3D printed robots manufacturing things for some time.

Russell [8:20 AM] 
That's not progress

Russell [8:20 AM]
Flying cars aren't selected for

Russell [8:20 AM]
They lack survivability value

Russell [8:21 AM]
Amazons prime deliver moving to Amazon flex...  As they push delivery times to zero one must manufacture close to the source

Russell [8:21 AM]
Of the transaction

Russell [8:21 AM]
It's happening

Russell [8:21 AM]
Who needs to fly except the drones

Schoeller [8:21 AM] 
I understand the vision. I’m just not convinced it’ll happen...

Schoeller [8:22 AM]
Well me for one :simple_smile:

Schoeller [8:22 AM]
Drone delivery is another unlikely occurance in any large scale.

Schoeller [8:23 AM]
The economics/logistics just don’t make any sense. Packages are heavy.

Russell [8:23 AM] 
Personal drivers. Personal shoppers. Personal virtual assistants.  ... All are shaping the world to not need all this movement.  Once were three degrees removed from these activities we won't care if it's a machine doing it all.

Russell [8:24 AM]
So make people want less heavy stuff

Russell [8:24 AM]
Sell them a kindle and ebooks

Russell [8:24 AM]
:)

Schoeller [8:24 AM] 
Agree on that.

Russell [8:24 AM] 
It's happening.

Schoeller [8:24 AM] 
Although (sidebar) dead-tree’s not dead.

Schoeller [8:25 AM]
You can’t digitize the tactile feel of thumbing through the pages of a book.

Schoeller [8:25 AM]
I suspect it’ll become boutique. Soft-cover trade books are done. But hardcover, well-bound, limited edition will carry on and do quite well.

Russell [8:27 AM] 
Nice try

Schoeller [8:27 AM] 
Back on track — A lot of this future stuff is the same: the hyperloop is just the next space elevator which was the next flying car, etc.

Russell [8:27 AM] 
You can destroy people's ability to touch

Russell [8:27 AM]
Negative sir

Schoeller [8:27 AM] 
I like my fingers, thank you very  much :wink:

Russell [8:27 AM] 
I'm making a much bigger systematic argument

Russell [8:28 AM]
Don't care about the specific forms

Russell [8:28 AM]
Only that forms get selected and replicated

Schoeller [8:28 AM] 
Well, it has to be grounded in something.

Russell [8:28 AM] 
Replicability!

Russell [8:28 AM]
Is it computationally efficient!

Russell [8:29 AM]
Boom boyeeee

Schoeller [8:29 AM] 
Much of the problem of flying cars, drone delivery, space elevators, 3d printed manufacturing, and hyperloops is the connection from physics -> economics.

Schoeller [8:29 AM]
We don’t have that with software. There, the challenge is the rate and format of the bits flying around.

Russell [8:30 AM] 
Hence computationally efficient

Russell [8:30 AM]
Economic networks also replicate computational efficiency.

Russell [8:31 AM]
Commodities have stable ish values because the idea is computationally efficient. Utility etc is well established in the network.  So they are exchanged etc.

Schoeller [8:32 AM] 
You’re asserting, then, that competition == computational efficiency?

Russell [8:32 AM] 
Correct

Russell [8:32 AM]
Efficiency must have survivability.

Russell [8:32 AM]
The trivial would not be efficient for economies

Schoeller [8:33 AM] 
I can buy that. At least in the sense of efficiency from the perspective of the system as a whole. Not for any given agent participating in the system.

Russell [8:33 AM] 
Yes.

Schoeller [8:33 AM] 
The agents are horrifically inefficient.

Schoeller [8:33 AM]
(individually)

Russell [8:34 AM] 
Hard to separate them from the system

Schoeller [8:34 AM] 
True, unless you’re an agent.

Russell [8:34 AM] 
I believe there is a law of the conservation of computation.

Schoeller [8:35 AM] 
computation can neither be created nor destroyed, but can only change form?

Russell [8:35 AM] 
Correct

Russell [8:36 AM]
And that results in all other conservation laws

Russell [8:36 AM]
And is why competition in all networks is computational efficient

Russell [8:36 AM]
And cannot be any other way

Schoeller [8:36 AM] 
It’ll take a bit for me to wrap my head around that idea.

Russell [8:37 AM] 
The singularity is pure probability.  Computationally irreducible.

Russell [8:37 AM]
Once probability breaks down into four forces and matter and light etc. we have pattern

Russell [8:37 AM]
But by the law of the conservation of computation it can't go to all pattern.

Russell [8:37 AM]
Or that would reduce computation

Russell [8:38 AM]
So competition between networks must proceed.

Russell [8:40 AM]
And per my blog post the idea that replication normalizes nodes in the network as they become more fully normalized the network of replication starts to collide with other networks of replication where the normalizations selected started competing.  Until a new form and new networks begin the process again.

Russell [8:40 AM]
Computation merely moves around these networks as the process of complexification and simplification double back over and over.

Russell [8:40 AM]
Even any american company is an example

Russell [8:41 AM]
We are simplifying and normalizing them all the time.

Russell [8:41 AM]
Employees replicate basic skills

Russell [8:41 AM]
And we recruit for these skills

Russell [8:41 AM]
 revenue lines get simplified

Russell [8:41 AM]
marketing simplifies messages to the world

Russell [8:42 AM]
All for survivability.

Russell [8:42 AM]
But this is also exposes companies to competition

Russell [8:42 AM]
It gets easier to poach employees.  And to see ideas and strategies on the outside.

Russell [8:42 AM]
Soon it tips and companies need New products. New marketing. New employees.

Russell [8:43 AM]
All the while computation is preserved in the wider network

Schoeller [8:43 AM] 
Where I’m struggling is how this copes with the notion that the universe tends toward disorder.

Russell [8:44 AM] 
Normalized forms become dispensable as individual nodes.

Russell [8:44 AM]
Disorder is pure noise.

Schoeller [8:44 AM] 
Order in the universe is effectively random.

Russell [8:44 AM] 
Total entropy.

Russell [8:45 AM]
Which if every network normalizes towards highly replicated forms they have less internal competition.  They have heat death.

Russell [8:45 AM]
Which is total entropy.

Russell [8:45 AM]
Again. A singularity is pure probability.

Russell [8:46 AM]
No pattern.

Russell [8:46 AM]
Randomness.

Schoeller [8:46 AM] 
I can buy that. Certainly there’s a low probability that any agent will succeed, thus the entropy tends to increase.

Russell [8:46 AM] 
Fully replicated forms are those that maximize survivability.

Russell [8:46 AM]
So some super weird platonic object between order and chaos

Russell [8:46 AM]
Between infinities.

Russell [8:46 AM]
A circle for example is a weird object

Russell [8:47 AM]
Rule 110 is a weird object

Schoeller [8:47 AM] 
Here’s a question — where does the computation come from to achieve fully replicated forms?

Schoeller [8:48 AM]
Presumably there’s some notion of “potential” computation?

Russell [8:48 AM] 
Negative.

Russell [8:48 AM]
There's only computation

Russell [8:48 AM]
Potential is a relational concept

Schoeller [8:49 AM] 
Hmm… then back to my question.

Russell [8:49 AM] 
There is no potential time

Russell [8:49 AM]
There is no potential dimension

Russell [8:50 AM]
There is no potential temperature

Schoeller [8:50 AM] 
Right, but time only moves forward — there’s no notion of conservation of time.

Russell [8:50 AM] 
Ah!

Russell [8:50 AM]
But I'm suggesting there is

Russell [8:50 AM]
Time is computation

Schoeller [8:50 AM] 
Actually, there is potential temperature. Temperature == energy.

Russell [8:51 AM] 
Yes it gets rather semantic

Schoeller [8:51 AM] 
The whole field is “thermodynamics"

Russell [8:51 AM] 
Yes which is superseded by computation

Russell [8:51 AM]
Hence why info theory and thermodynamics are isomorphic

Russell [8:51 AM]
They are just substrate discussions

Russell [8:51 AM]
Which go away in the math

Schoeller [8:52 AM] 
Well, strictly speaking that math doesn’t govern, but attempt to describe.

Russell [8:53 AM] 
Look at how computer science handlse time

Russell [8:53 AM]
Steps or cycles

Russell [8:53 AM]
It defines time as compute steps

Russell [8:53 AM]
Hahahahaha

Schoeller [8:53 AM] 
If info theory and thermo are isomorphic, then the principal of potential has to translate in some way. It’s important because that’s one of the foundations of conservation of energy.

Russell [8:54 AM] 
Yes yes

Russell [8:54 AM]
I'll find a translation for you

Russell [8:54 AM]
It's got something to do with chaitins number

Schoeller [8:55 AM] 
Computer science handles time as a long from a particular, arbitrary point. And calculates differences as a byproduct of the way it operates.

Schoeller [8:55 AM]
A “quantum” computer would handle time very differently.

Russell [8:56 AM] 
Yes. Keep going.

Schoeller [8:56 AM] 
“We” calculate time from celestial positions.

Schoeller [8:56 AM]
None of that relates to the more generalized notion of time.

Russell [8:57 AM] 
I propose the translation of time fits within the law of conservation of computation

Russell [8:57 AM]
Quantum computers are closer to singularities. Computing with pure probabilities

Russell [8:57 AM]
Classical computers compute with approximated machine precision probabilities

Russell [8:58 AM]
Somewhere things get super weird with math (algebra and geometry meets probability theory)

Russell [8:58 AM]
Math itself suffers same challenge

Schoeller [8:59 AM] 
Yes, well math likes to be very precise.

Russell [8:59 AM] 
That which symbolically lacks pure probability humans and classical computers can handle

Russell [9:00 AM]
Once you deal with infinities and infinistimals you start getting to pure probabilities and math theory starts bleeding.

Schoeller [9:00 AM] 
Okay, so I can accept a notion of a conservation of probability of time.

Russell [9:00 AM] 
N-order logics require n+1 order and incompleteness and set paradoxes.

Russell [9:01 AM]
Math itself becomes computationally weird.

Schoeller [9:01 AM] 
ie that the probably of an event occurring or not occurring within a system is 1. Of course, that’s tautological.

Schoeller [9:02 AM]
But also that it would hold for any number of events over any set of times.

Russell [9:02 AM] 
Because once a math system becomes computationally inefficient it all of a sudden is  incomplete. And we reduce to "somethings are true but we can't prove them in this system"

Russell [9:03 AM]
Yes pure probability is binary.  Either everything happens or nothing happens.

Russell [9:03 AM]
If everything happens you must conserve computation as that everything happens

Russell [9:03 AM]
Can't be more than 1! Can't be less than 1!

Schoeller [9:04 AM] 
Well, I think what I’m saying is that my need for “potential” computation is solved by probability.

Russell [9:04 AM] 
And local events of everything take on less than all computation because of the halting problem.

Schoeller [9:04 AM] 
Although I haven’t completely convinced myself.

Russell [9:04 AM] 
If the halting problem weren't true every event / computation could self inspect and computation would tend to 0

Russell [9:05 AM]
Chaitins number is a measure of probability

Russell [9:05 AM]
Complexity is a measure of probability

Russell [9:05 AM]
Probability is a notion of unknown information

Russell [9:05 AM]
All data of everything would contain every program and all outputs

Russell [9:06 AM]
And has a probability of any and all events total of 1.  All information is known

Russell [9:06 AM]
And the same time it is 0

Schoeller [9:06 AM] 
Here wouldn’t the truth of the halting problem arise from the fact the system is influenced from elements outside the system?

Russell [9:06 AM] 
Because all information is computationally irreducible of the maximal kind

Schoeller [9:06 AM] 
(ie. similar to thermo)

Schoeller [9:06 AM]
Therefore a computation can never know its inputs.

Russell [9:06 AM] 
Yes.  Halting problem is exactly that

Russell [9:06 AM]
Unknowns

Schoeller [9:06 AM] 
And thus, can never know its outputs.

Schoeller [9:07 AM]
Because the program can’t see beyond itself.

Russell [9:07 AM] 
It's not a matter of inputs

Russell [9:07 AM]
It emerges from computation!

Russell [9:07 AM]
Elementary ca show this

Russell [9:07 AM]
Godel showed this

Russell [9:08 AM]
Mere DESCRIPTION!  Description is computation

Russell [9:09 AM]
I think wolfram gave in too easily

Russell [9:09 AM]
He still believes in Euclidean time

Russell [9:09 AM]
Or whatever Greek time

Schoeller [9:10 AM] 
Right. And if computation is probabilistic, the program couldn’t even know, necessarily, what it was actually computing at any given point (until that point occurrs).

Schoeller [9:11 AM]
Yeah, I think your theory only works if time is a probability not a discrete measure.

Russell [9:12 AM]
Time isn't discrete.

Russell [9:12 AM]
It's pure difference

Schoeller [9:12 AM] 
Which is really to say that the outcome of a computation can’t be known until the state of the system is known.

Schoeller [9:12 AM]
Which itself can’t be known with any certainty until it occurs.

Schoeller [9:13 AM]
Or, it’s all wibbly, wobbly, timey, wimey stuff.

Schoeller [9:14 AM]
Or, possibly the Heisenberg uncertainty principal as applied to computation.

Russell [9:14 AM] 
But 2+2 is 4

Schoeller [9:14 AM] 
Only if the state of the system is consistent.

Schoeller [9:14 AM]
(which it happens to be)

Russell [9:15 AM] 
And that math statement is a "localized" statement

Schoeller [9:15 AM] 
So, the probably of 2+2=4 is very, very close to 1, but not exactly. Possibly so close that its limit approaches.

Schoeller [9:16 AM]
Right. So, part of why the state for 2+2=4 is consistent is because we’ve defined it that way.

Russell [9:16 AM] 
It's what I call robust

Russell [9:16 AM]
In most universes 2+2 is 4

Russell [9:16 AM]
In the multiverse there are universes where that's not true

Schoeller [9:16 AM] 
But, if you shift from say cartesian to spherical, it doesn’t necessarily hold unless you change what “2” and “4” mean.

Russell [9:17 AM] 
But those are very small universes that reduce quickly

Russell [9:17 AM]
Yes.

Russell [9:17 AM]
Thank you!

Schoeller [9:17 AM] 
i.e their definition is relative to the system you’re computing within.

Russell [9:17 AM] 
Counting and the math emerges from the computational systems

Russell [9:17 AM]
Yes.

Russell [9:18 AM]
And in the entirety of the multiverse all maths exist.  All description exists.

Schoeller [9:19 AM] 
Sure. That’s as tautological as the probability that something either exists or does not is 1.

Schoeller [9:20 AM]
Since the probability of anything existing within an infinity, unbounded system would also be 1.

Russell [9:20 AM] 
And your point?

Russell [9:21 AM]
Math loves tautologies

Russell [9:21 AM]
We have to state them all the time

Russell [9:21 AM]
Or reduce to them

Schoeller [9:22 AM] 
Well, it’s consistent with probability theory. So, that’s nice.

Russell [9:22 AM] 
Is that what symbolics and rule replacements are?

Russell [9:23 AM]
One giant computational tautology

Schoeller [9:23 AM] 
If you’re going to have a theory that talks about local behvior within systems, you have to have consistency when you take that to its extreme limit — such as when the system contains everything possible.

Schoeller [9:24 AM]
Aren’t you just describing the state of the system with symbolics and rules?

Russell [9:25 AM] 
Sure.

Russell [9:25 AM]
And the state of everything is what?

Schoeller [9:25 AM] 
Here describe means “govern” (unlike my earlier math statement)

Russell [9:26 AM] 
Isn't that the state of all sub states or local states?

Russell [9:26 AM]
Of which some local states are meta descriptions of sub sub states or neighboring states

Schoeller [9:26 AM] 
I think the state of everything is that the probability of anything is 1.

Schoeller [9:26 AM]
It’s rather useless, but so is the notion of the state of everything.

Russell [9:27 AM] 
Govern gets tricky because it's non sensible as a fundamental concept. Eg the spin of a quark doesn't govern. It's just a property.

Russell [9:27 AM]
Gravity and the other forces don't govern.

Russell [9:28 AM]
They are descriptions of relationships

Schoeller [9:28 AM] 
Sure, but the definition of “2” on a Cartesian plane is.

Russell [9:28 AM] 
If Gravity is merely space time curvature. A geometry that doesn't mean it governs.

Russell [9:28 AM]
What is the definition of 2 governing?

Schoeller [9:29 AM] 
It’s governing the behavior of 2 within the cartesian system.

Russell [9:29 AM] 
It's merely a description of relations between an X position and a y position on a description of a plane

Schoeller [9:29 AM] 
i.e. that 2 can’t be 3 or an apple.

Russell [9:30 AM] 
Ah.  Yes.  Definition bounds localized networks.

Russell [9:30 AM]
2 is a 3 in some systems

Russell [9:31 AM]
Say a simple system of primes and non primes without concern of actual quantity

Schoeller [9:31 AM] 
I think this idea holds. The symbols and rules govern the system in a computational sense. But that does not mean that the system itself governs any physical phenomena. Only that it describes (to the extent that the rules reasonably describe the same.)

Schoeller [9:31 AM]
— moving back to describe and govern meaning different things --

Russell [9:31 AM] 
Yes Im in agreement

Russell [9:31 AM]
Govern is a localized concept of bounding relations

Russell [9:32 AM]
Let's return to the main q in all this

Russell [9:32 AM]
WHAT DOES THE WORK OF COMPUTATION

Schoeller [9:32 AM] 
Yes, bounding relations that define a specific system within the multiverse of possible systems.

Schoeller [9:35 AM]
Well, the computation would have to be done within the medium of the system, right?

Schoeller [9:36 AM]
It can’t be just one thing. Because we’ve already enumerated that there a quantum computers that are different than regular computers that are different than the human brain.

Russell [9:36 AM] 
yeah, i haven't figured this out.

Russell [9:36 AM]
other than, it's everything i'm trying to figure out.

Schoeller [9:37 AM] 
And to some degree, you pick the computational medium when you define the system. At least in the programming world. Mathematica vs Java vs Spark.

Russell [9:38 AM] 
i think it's this.... or related.... to perceive/observe/describe/explain at all, whatever sub network of everything (whatever universe, computer, entity, person, rock...) IS.  and the IS and IS NOT of breaking out of total relation to everything is COMPUTATION.  and it's a super weird notion.  but the mere simplification of total relation to partial relation IS the COMPUTATIONAL ACT.

Schoeller [9:39 AM] 
And with a math problem, you’re defining the computational medium to be the human brain.

Russell [9:40 AM] 
well, within the human / this universe frame of reference or partial relation to everything, yes.

Schoeller [9:41 AM] 
Agree that it’s a weird notion that computational singularity doesn’t “seem” to underly everything. But the rules and computation have to be related and even dependent.

Russell [9:41 AM] 
whether we can COMPUTE  or "IS" with a different substrate... well, i think so.... i think "computers" and "virtual reality" are moving our COMPUTE/DESCRIPTION/RELATION to everything beyond/outside the Human Brain.

Schoeller [9:42 AM] 
So, it’s easier if we constrain ourselves to the systems we make up.

Schoeller [9:43 AM]
As for what computes the physical world — maybe there’s a lesson in evolution theory, where “computation” is quite literally random mutations of the medium itself.

Schoeller [9:44 AM]
And where the “selection”/“survival”/“success” of the computation occurs outside the system (back to the halting problem discussion above)

Schoeller [9:46 AM]
I should clarify "But the rules and computation have to be related and even dependent.” … within a system. In the multiverse, anything goes. :simple_smile:

Russell [9:48 AM] 
yes, on your evolutionary theory... or something similar to that.  the resolution of probabilities IS computation.   resolution being like the resolution of super positions in quantum stuff.

Russell [9:48 AM]
i believe that basically happens as you move from logic systems, computational systems, i.e. russell's theory of types etc.

Russell [9:49 AM]
related to all this numbo jumbo: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/quine-nf/

Schoeller [9:50 AM] 
It’s an example of a chaotic system where order appears to arise naturally, so it seems like it’d be a reasonable starting place to think about other physical systems.

Russell [9:50 AM] 
yes, i say we conclude there for now

Schoeller [9:50 AM] 
I think the key is the halting problem bit — that the computation can’t possibly know if its successful. That occurs outside the system where the computation is valid. It only blindly executes.

Russell [9:51 AM] 
we've created something between chaos and order in this dialog

Russell [9:51 AM]
which will be non trivial to clear up.

This Misconception of Validation

Validation is the concept almost all Western ideas and cultures (politics, companies, social structures!) are based on.   Validation, in terms of people, is in some sense the idea "you are approved to profess what you profess."

It's a social concept and it's horribly incomplete.  Validation is a mostly built up on the idea of "you went through what I went through" which is not the same as what you do/say/build is truth/right/worthwhile.

The idea is the idea.  The thing is the thing.  The theory is right or not.  The math works or it doesn't.

the idea is right.  it's true.  truth is true.  what is true is true.

OR

you're right because you are YOU! you are the person we know is right because you've been right before!  you're RIGHT RIGHT RIGHT because you're the person IN CHARGE.

so which is it? are you about the source? the build up of authority or about the rightness of the idea.

it's Plato vs. the world.  

I think Plato was right.

The Effect of Time

Our modern lives (in the West) are ontologically organized around time as a fundamental piece of whatever makes up existence and life.  "Time is money," "On time is late," "Be In The Present," "Live like this is the last day of your life," "Time changes everything." Are just a handful of the slogans we tell each other about time's primacy.

It is an illusion.

what is time?

Perhaps this an old (time again) forgotten hypothesis I'm proposing here.  Good old Plato or Zeno or Buddha and countless religious ideas and a few mathematicians and scientists touched on such a notion.   The hypothesis is simply that time and change are not primary.  They are partial phenomena.   That is, they are little things built up from a static, omnipresent everything.  

What we notice as time is simply a shift in perspective.  We connect differently to network of existence.   We are ourselves a network of connections and connected to the wider network.  Our perspectives (perceptions) are the effects of this network.   As we "age" - grow, consume, create, learn, procreate, etc - we are simply connecting differently.  the US that makes up the network we call OURSELVES is a different network.  Nothing in the structure of everything has changed.   

Why bother with this meta-physical hocus pocus?   On one hand, because that's what I'm doing.  There's no bigger cause.  It's just where I am in my perspective.   What are the connections I'm bringing to bear on this conception?  Beyond my own "point in life" I've researched and experienced a wide variety of scientific, mathematical, philosophical and artistic theories of time and they all dance around with more or less some shred of believability depending on the context.   The illusion of time in my own common sense is also very stubborn.   So this has all led me, whatever I am, to reconceive of time (and space) not as primal.  

The seeming single directional arrow of time (but only a Newtonian scales), spacetime curvature by mass/gravity, psychological relativity of time, the concept of "time" to an abstract Turing Machine, the notion of space as a network, all suggest that time itself is not. And if time is not then space is not.  And thus motion is not.

And by not, I don't mean these concepts and their "observed" existence is not.  Most certainly this concepts exist within what I call "localities of everything".   That is, in the sub network of existence where persons and animals and plants and von Neumann computers connect we have these phenomena/properties of existence that we label as time, space and motion.   As we look forever beyond/outside of/below/inside of the infinity of everything we find these notions breakdown rather quickly.

Consider virtual reality.   What is the notion of space and time in virtual reality?   What is the notion of circles and spheres and persons?   What are those "realities"?  

One cannot easily dismiss virtual reality as some toy, not quite real version of existence.   There is nothing logically nor experimentally that will allow one to simply throw away virtual reality as a genuine universe to observe.  Virtual reality is not a simulation of "our reality."  It is a unique, universal reality all unto itself.   Perhaps you can argue it is limited by the computational power of the computers/network it runs on.   But that argument doesn't hold up because we know that even objects as simple as a universal Turing Machine can compute anything that can be computed... Our own reality seems constrained by the total atomic matter available... but even that makes no sense as an invalidation of our reality as not being a reality.   Besides as soon as we think we've reached the end of slicing or expanding reality to its fundamentals we find other bosons, spins, fluids, ethers, dimensions, traces, branches we had yet to notice.

And so my hypothesis is only provable by what means?  a mathematical proof?  thousands of experiments?  

It is unprovable in the sense of absolute proof.   

The value here of stating such a claim isn't in its absolute proof.  It's value is in furthering connections.   Does it open me and others to more sub-networks of existence?  does it help previously disconnected theories?  Do we care about those connections? 

In a sense it doesn't matter.   In another sense, where I personally wish to have more coherence in my own experience of existence, it matters to me.   I wish not to give away everything to a relentless, unchanging clock forever ticking away.  It's too reductive of a concept and doesn't even hold up well within science and math.   Computational sciences operate slightly differently.  Instead of time like ticks of an atom or pendulum swings or moves of a clock hand around a circle, computational time is simply measured in "operations" or "elementary steps" in a computation.

I reinterpret that notion of "operations" to "connections".   When we compute (algorithms doing stuff... input, transform, output.... algorithms interacting) we connect.  We take one thing to another thing.   And time is measured not by some elementary particle of time, but simply as a "step" or a "configuration" or a "connection change." (I borrow heavily from ideas from Wolfram and others.)

It is hard to take these ideas seriously in experiments as our tools and perceptions are way too limited.  It is only possible via philosophical wandering and by computing.  Playing around with enough programmatic complexity to see if more and more of what we experience as the effects of time (and space and motion) show up.

That's probably not very convincing as theory of time's existence... but ask yourself how convinced your watch (iwatch), desktop, wall clock, the sun, NSIT, etc are all in agreement on time's nature or are simply connecting more and more of your experience to their semi-synchronous connection to each other.

The effect of time is simply our limited view of everything.