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.)

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.