Science is moving from Materialism to Idealism and that's good news!

reply to post by ImaFungi


Irrational numbers are infinitely long, so the next digit is never known. That is at least one kind of true randomness.

The first time anyway.

reply to post by ImaFungi


i think it is more likely that the universe is primarily composed of chaotic order, and that any object which is explicitly ordered and deterministic (such as is the case with information), is necessarily artificial or unnatural.

you have mentioned a type of spectrum of well-orderedness which is certainly necessary. for example, if i say that the orbit of the earth around the sun is not deterministic, someone will come up in here citing all kinds of relativistic formulations claiming i am full of it. nevertheless, such an orbit is the quintessential example of a chaotic system: one which is topologically mixing (can be perturbed by unpredictable events) (#2), and one which tends to revisit the neighborhood of all previous orbits (#3).


the cellular automaton appears to be predictable to you. that is because you are occupying a different, perpendicular, dimension of observation upon the system than the system is capable of occupying upon itself.

in other words, the system is not aware of the fact that it is producing larger and smaller triangles. the algorithm rule set which generates the pattern simply plugs away at it, one pixel at a time. the algorithm doesent care about what came before or is about to happen. it just goes and goes.

so, while it appears to be deterministic to you, that is because you are observing the STATE (am i over-stressing the importance of this word? no.) of the system, outside of the relative time domain of the system itself. you do not occupy the same time frame. you are "above" it.


but none of what i have said in this post relates to the question of predictability. it is possible to predict the sequence of generated terms in the automaton only by explicit calculation of each and every term. again, this is maximum entropy. equivalent to random. like unto the sequence of digits for the number PI.

PI has been calculated out to the bajillionth term. so, what is the bajillion-and-oneth term? there is only one way (that we know of) to answer this: generate the next term explicitly. this is maximum entropy. equivalent to random.

i can hear you thinking that surely PI must have some sort of predetermined and definitive order, and that whether or not we are aware of its order, the order nevertheless exists. that may be true. but that is not the point. the number PI could be speaking mandarin chinese, but if we are personally not aware of the language it is speaking, it is functionally equivalent to random.

on the other hand, if we were suddenly to become aware of the ordering principle of PI, the amount of entropy it contains would drop significantly. interestingly, the 2nd law of thermodynamics says that a lowering of entropy is not possible.... within a closed system. in the moment that we discover the ordering principle, we become part of the system of PI, changing it from a closed to an open system and allowing the lowering of entropy to take place.


i am sorry if that is more than you asked for.

I think what people are calling "chaos" is more ordered than "order".

That is, the more order, or forces, applied to a thing, the more it will appear to be chaos, yet it is quite the opposite - it is order of greater magnitudes than the more simple states it has arisen from. The supposed tipping point/breaking point that creates chaos should then be viewed to be of a higher order, not less order, nor more chaotic.

-There is no chaos, only order in the infinite magnitude.

As for the hologram thing, I have to agree with fungi's premise. 2d, like chaos, doesn't truly exist. You cannot have x, y, z without having all 3 dimensions. Not in this realm, anyways.

The majority of numbers are irrational. I don't know if that has been proven, but it seems self evident.

My calculus professor said there are infinities of different sizes.

reply to post by Semicollegiate

Can the Limit concept from Calculus be used to predict chaotic systems, like ImAFungi said?

yes. yes. and more yes. please see: wavefunction distribution of quantum object.

chaotic systems are usually modeled via calculus.... without which it would (to us) forever be random noise, rather than ordered noise.

the limit of the function in such a case will only tell us the 'neighborhood of the orbit' according to some allowable error-value on its convergence.... which is not as well defined as saying 'approaches the x-axis'.

however, cases such as the cellular automaton and the mandelbrot fractal remain equivalent to random.

reply to post by Bleeeeep

The supposed tipping point/breaking point that creates chaos should then be viewed to be of a higher order, not less order, nor more chaotic.

so what i hear you saying is that the larger the system is, the more ordered it becomes?

larger systems have lower entropy? yes.

entropy flows from "higher" systems to "lower" systems? yes.

the universe eventually dies a heat death as a flow from order to disorder? pretty much.

You cannot have x, y, z without having all 3 dimensions.

the diffraction patterns of crystals say otherwise. this is how the 3D helix structure of DNA was deduced: by studying its 2D diffraction pattern which implicitly contains information about its symmetry in three dimensions.

Semicollegiate
reply to post by ImaFungi

 

Irrational numbers are infinitely long, so the next digit is never known. That is at least one kind of true randomness.

The first time anyway.

Its not random. Its exactly as it must be. Once we said 0=0 1=1 -1=-1 then all math existed. All the irrational numbers were computed and were tautologically themselves at that point (perhaps they always abstractly and potentially are), just because it was random to us our first time computing, does not mean that the digits are inconsequentially random, they are the exact digits they need to be to equal the equation computed to result in the irrational number.

tgidkp


i think it is more likely that the universe is primarily composed of chaotic order, and that any object which is explicitly ordered and deterministic (such as is the case with information), is necessarily artificial or unnatural.

Semantics again, there is no such thing as artificial or unnatural, unless you mean to say any object that is ordered and deterministic is man made?

you have mentioned a type of spectrum of well-orderedness which is certainly necessary. for example, if i say that the orbit of the earth around the sun is not deterministic, someone will come up in here citing all kinds of relativistic formulations claiming i am full of it. nevertheless, such an orbit is the quintessential example of a chaotic system: one which is topologically mixing (can be perturbed by unpredictable events) (#2), and one which tends to revisit the neighborhood of all previous orbits (#3).

It seems you have set yourself up for win win; The earths orbit around the sun is generally an exhibition of order. How could the system of the earth orbiting the sun be more orderly? For how long now has a 'year' roughly yet precisely been its allotted travel through time and space? It is easier for me to imagine the earths orbit around the sun to be more chaotic, then it is for me to imagine it being more orderly.

the cellular automaton appears to be predictable to you. that is because you are occupying a different, perpendicular, dimension of observation upon the system than the system is capable of occupying upon itself.

in other words, the system is not aware of the fact that it is producing larger and smaller triangles. the algorithm rule set which generates the pattern simply plugs away at it, one pixel at a time. the algorithm doesent care about what came before or is about to happen. it just goes and goes.

so, while it appears to be deterministic to you, that is because you are observing the STATE (am i over-stressing the importance of this word? no.) of the system, outside of the relative time domain of the system itself. you do not occupy the same time frame. you are "above" it.

The issue of determinabilty isnt about me or it, it is about truth. But yes I think I just had some thoughts that allow me to agree with you... if the algorithm uses probability I guess it is not determinable, but I still find it hard to break away from my instinct. What made me potentially admit maybe understand what your saying, is thinking of lottery balls, (similar to mentioning guessing a random number) you know the lottery ball machines that pop up the balls, forget playing the lottery, if you were standing in front of one of the machines, and it had 1000 numbered balls in it, and you had to guess the order the balls would pop up, it would not be likely you would correctly determine. But I am still urged to say it is still based off of laws of physics, and if you had all the information about every ball, and pico second to pico second updates as to where each ball was, and all physical variables like the angular momentum and velocity and momentum and saw each ball bouncing off each other and their positions, and then was notified when the vacuum thing was turned on or however that happens, if you had all that information, and could sort through it frame by frame, as if it was occurring in slow motion, you should be able to determine every ball to come up, if you knew all the laws of physics. Does this not at all relate to an algorithm that may utilize randomness or probability, it is still limited to a grid, it is still operating under limitations and rules, there is a limited amount of things it may do step by step. So I feel like given all the information, it should be predictable.

but none of what i have said in this post relates to the question of predictability. it is possible to predict the sequence of generated terms in the automaton only by explicit calculation of each and every term. again, this is maximum entropy. equivalent to random. like unto the sequence of digits for the number PI.

PI has been calculated out to the bajillionth term. so, what is the bajillion-and-oneth term? there is only one way (that we know of) to answer this: generate the next term explicitly. this is maximum entropy. equivalent to random.

i can hear you thinking that surely PI must have some sort of predetermined and definitive order, and that whether or not we are aware of its order, the order nevertheless exists. that may be true. but that is not the point. the number PI could be speaking mandarin chinese, but if we are personally not aware of the language it is speaking, it is functionally equivalent to random.

I dont agree with your sentiments, you are saying objective reality does not exist until through our subjectivity we objectify our minds, we make our minds equal to objectivity and that is when objectivity exists.

on the other hand, if we were suddenly to become aware of the ordering principle of PI, the amount of entropy it contains would drop significantly. interestingly, the 2nd law of thermodynamics says that a lowering of entropy is not possible.... within a closed system. in the moment that we discover the ordering principle, we become part of the system of PI, changing it from a closed to an open system and allowing the lowering of entropy to take place.
i am sorry if that is more than you asked for.

What do you mean its entropy would drop? Is that because the further the calculation of pi goes away from the decimal the less consequential? So for example the .14 is more important or contains more entropy then the following infinite digits?

tgidkp

the diffraction patterns of crystals say otherwise. this is how the 3D helix structure of DNA was deduced: by studying its 2D diffraction pattern which implicitly contains information about its symmetry in three dimensions.

What do you mean by diffraction patterns, do you mean shadows?

reply to post by ImaFungi


hahaha. i guess i deserve your wrath. i didnt realize i was doing it at the time, but i totally blew-up this thread.

this is the point of our conversation, ima, and i say this only because you and i have been here before and not because i discourage asking questions or am skirting the issue... this is the point at which i say that if you are interested enough, you should try to answer these questions on your own. i have done enough here and i do not intend to go on for another 20 pages with you.


have a good night.

sorry for crashing the party, neoholographic. i am poorly behaved sometimes.

^^ Well thats it folks. I win!

reply to post by ImaFungi


Well said, and I agree with the precision of the irrational number.

But the nth digit of any irrational number is unknown until it is computed.

Say you could double your net worth by correctly guessing the 1000th digit of a yet to be selected irrational number.

In a base ten number system your odds would be 1 in 10. That is random.

Also, must irrational numbers continue to infinity? Couldn't the answer be complete at any decimal place?

Semicollegiate


Also, must irrational numbers continue to infinity? Couldn't the answer be complete at any decimal place?

No, it is infinite. Because there are numbers that divide into each other evenly. The ones that dont, never round off or are complete. There is an infinitesimal disproportion of the quantities, so that means they can be everdivided, because the abstract space of numbers is infinite, like there is infinite digits between 1 and 2. Because math folks made up those rules, that 1.1 , 1.112, 1.111111113, 1.22223, etc. are all numbers that exist. There is no theoretical limit to the amount of numbers that can sequentially be written you can have all the people and computers and machines that will ever exist in the universe non stop write the number 9, and its still possible for that number they all write to be multiplied by it self, and again and again and again, this is the infinitude of the abstract 'thing' that is math. So an irrational number can continuously be computed, its just the pattern of division repeating. Like idk if this is a proper example but the golden ratio, is that irrational? In an abstract infinite number space, can the spiral of the golden ratio not continue infinitely?

reply to post by tgidkp

FIXED: Information is an exchange (and the carrier/symbol-set) - between one physical (mental) system to another.

In what sense are you using the word information? Before you said it didn't exist, but several times in this post, you use it.

I understand that information can be correlated with changes in state. So I can see how one pattern - the electrical neural pattern in a brain - would correspond with the information in the environment.

In this case, the plane is one type of information - and one type of "pattern" in the environment. The brain pattern is another type of pattern which becomes "triggered" when the plane is seen in the environment.

But, this is an extremely vague way to put it. The brain isn't merely a pattern, but an intricate program with an extremely complex organization.

For example, the brains response isn't precisely pattern sensitive in the sense that one pattern in the environment initiates a corresponding pattern in the brain. Rather, in the brain, cortical memory networks interact with the hippocampus after becoming alerted by the visual cortexes apperception of a plane in the environment; this alerts the amygdala to "increase awareness"; following this, the Hypothalmus-Pituitary-Adrenal axis kicks into gear flooding the brain with stress specific hormones like adrenaline and cortisol. Even though this occurs seemingly "at once", there is a logical and linear flow of information, beginning with the part of the brain that processes visual information, and ending with a secretion of stress hormones which keep the orbitofrontal cortex fixed on the environmental stimulus.

a STATE can be translated into information, and can even generate information. but the state does not exist in a linearized dimension: it is a total unified thing which is as though all of the information were being 'transmitted' all at once.

So information is indispensible to the system. The "neural cascade" you describe isn't merely a cascade, but a flow of information which follows a logical and linear pathway, necessarily beginning with brain areas that process vision, and ending with the secretion of hormones that increase attention to the stimulus.

I cannot see how this process can be understood without taking information as a literal part of the picture.

Is it possible that both interpretations - the unified state where everything happens "at once" - as well as the informational, linear state, describe the two sides of what is occurring?

reply to post by neoholographic


I don't like this hologram business, mankind has been falsely locked in a materialistic outlook for long enough, now they want to put us in a hologram. This is sick s**t.

You said:

If the universe is 3 dimensional spatially, which it appears to be, then how can any 2d object truly exist? It cant have a quantitative value of length and width and a value of 0 for depth

This is the crux of the problem. People think that "which appears to be" real has to be an objective reality. It goes back to Plato and the Allegory of the Cave. He said when people were told that what appears to be reality isn't an objective reality, they will not be able to grasp it.

This goes to things like information theory, black hole thermodynamics and the holographic principle. First, I encourage people to watch this great lecture by Leonard Susskind called The World as a Hologram.



A very important point needs to be made. The holographic principle doesn't say reality is an illusion but the 3rd dimension or volume is an illusion. Here's another video of Brian Greene and Susskind who talk about the illusion of the 3rd dimension.



So and event horizon is the boundary of a black hole. People like Hawking and Bekenstein showed that the amount of stuff that can fit into an area isn't described by it's volume but a 2 dimensional surface boundary. So the 3rd dimension can't be real. It has to be a hologram or a phantasm. So how much stuff can fit into any area isn't determined by it's volume but a 2 dimensional surface area 1/4 the size of it's volume. Here's a simple description from Wiki about the holographic principle.

The holographic principle states that the entropy of ordinary mass (not just black holes) is also proportional to surface area and not volume; that volume itself is illusory and the universe is really a hologram which is isomorphic to the information "inscribed" on the surface of its boundary.[9]

At the end of the day it's just cold, hard physics. 3 dimensional objective reality can't exist. If my cable remote actually existed of matter, it couldn't exist. It would exceed maximum entropy and therefore collapse into a black hole so it has to be a hologram or a phantasm.

Let's say you fill up your closet with boxes, you would think the volume of your closet determines how many boxes you could fit into your closet. This isn't the case. How many boxes you can fit into your closet is determined by a 2 dimensional surface boundary 1/4 the size of it's volume. What this tells us is that the boxes that you're putting into your closet have to be a hologram or a phantasm because if they were a 3 dimensional objective reality, you would create a black hole in your closet because the boxes would exceed this limit or exceed maximum entropy.

So the inside of your closet could be seen as the black hole. You can't see anything inside of your closet because light can't escape the black hole. The event horizon would be the surface boundary on the outside of your closet door. The thing that's very interesting is the volume of a black hole is zero, close to zero and some say infinite. So the amount of stuff that fell into a black hole is determined by information inscribed on it's boundary and not it's volume. So again, a 3 dimensional objective reality can't exist because a 3 dimensional object made of matter would exceed maximum entropy and collapse into a black hole.

My personal theory is, we could be living inside a wormhole. So matter inside of a black hole never reaches a singularity because of quantum mechanics. The black hole gets full so to speak and has to unbuckle it's pants like at Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner. Matter then explodes from the black hole through a wormhole that connects to another 2 dimensional boundary. This is why a universe appears to come from nothing. This is because we can't see the other universe taking a dump so to speak so all this matter it's releasing appears to come from nowhere.

Inside the wormhole, the illusion of the 3rd dimension would be the intertwining of time and depth. The space between two surface boundaries would give the illusion of the 3rd dimension and maybe even higher dimensions because the stuff in between these boundaries couldn't travel faster than light and couldn't see these boundaries. We could actually be moving towards this other boundary and moving into higher dimensions.

It goes even deeper.

This is because information is tied to knowing. This is what the atheist David Deutsch was talking about when he said information was immaterial. This goes back to a thought experiment called Maxwell's demon. A recent experiment showed that information can be converted into energy.

Demonic device converts information to energy

The laws of physics say that you can't get energy for nothing — worse still, you will always get out of a system less energy than you put in. But a nanoscale experiment inspired by a nineteenth-century paradox that seemed to break those laws now shows that you can generate energy from information.

Masaki Sano, a physicist at the University of Tokyo, and his colleagues have demonstrated that a bead can be coaxed up a 'spiral staircase' without any energy being directly transferred to the bead to push it upwards. Instead, it is persuaded along its route by a series of judiciously timed decisions to change the height of the 'steps' around it, based on information about the bead's position. In this sense, "information is being converted to energy", says Sano. The work is published by Nature Physics today1.

The team's set-up was inspired by a nineteenth-century thought experiment proposed by Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell, which — controversially, at the time — suggested that information could be converted into energy. In the thought experiment, a demon guards a door between two rooms, each filled with gas molecules. The demon allows only fast-moving gas particles to pass out of the room on the left and into the room on the right, and only slow-moving particles to pass in the opposite direction.

As a result, the room on the right gradually gets warmer as the average speed of particles in that room increases, and the room on the left gets colder. The demon thus creates a difference in temperature without ever imparting any energy directly to the gas molecules — simply by knowing information about their speeds. This seems to violate the second law of thermodynamics, which states that you cannot make a system more ordered without any energy input.

This is very important because the next step is everything is Mind or Knowing. Knowing is key to information. If 2 cards are face down, it takes information to know what the cards are when faced up. If you make a footprint in the snow, you need information to know it's a footprint. Where does this knowing come from? I think there has to be a Supreme Knower or a collective knowing akin to a collective conscious. So we're all higher dimensional Knowers experiencing this lower dimension. Another key point of the study.

The experiment does not actually violate the second law of thermodynamics, because in the system as a whole, energy must be consumed by the equipment — and the experimenters — to monitor the bead and switch the voltage as needed. But it does show that information can be used as a medium to transfer energy, says Sano. The bead is driven as a mini-rotor, with a information-to-energy conversion efficiency of 28%.

www.nature.com...

Knowing requires information

CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS POST

Knowing reduces uncertainty. But again I ask, where does this knowing come from?

How can matter know what state matter is in? For instance, how can the material brain recall specific memories at will? How does the brain know I wish to recall a memory from when I first went swimming? How does the material brain know the difference between a memory when I first went swimming and a memory when I went to Vegas for a Tyson fight?

The fact is, your brain is a measuring device that stores information. There has to be a Knower that operates and navigates the information processed and stored on the material brain.

So materialism is quickly becoming an artifact of the past and I think the next step is the realization that everything stems from Mind or Knowing.

reply to post by neoholographic


I completely disagree with your holographic stuff. And the closet and knowing the universe is not 3d because you can know its volume by using its 2d description. You said that over and over again, but you never said how. It is the silliest argument to say that 3-dimensionality does not exist. Explain how a bowling ball is 2-d, please.

reply to post by ImaFungi



I clearly explained it several times. If you don't understand it that doesn't make it stupid, it just means you're ignorant to the holographic principle and things like black hole thermodynamics.

I'm not saying ignorant to be derogatory because everyone is ignorant of something. The thing that makes us smarter is actually learning about the things we don't know instead of having a knee jerk reaction.

reply to post by Astrocyte

Is it possible that both interpretations - the unified state where everything happens "at once" - as well as the informational, linear state, describe the two sides of what is occurring?

absolutely. i never meant to marginalize information theory, and i never said that it doesnt exist. i said that when information is captured by a hologram (or a black hole), it ceases to be information. the problem that i ran into in this thread is the strong impulse to describe ALL 'information-like' phenomena with information theory. such is the case with trying to understand the actual functional characteristics of a hologram as a computer hard-disk....



the other reason that i have placed such strong emphasis on the chaotic-system description is because mankind has been trapped in the reductionist paradigm for far too long; information theory being probably the pinnacle achievement of reductionist thinking.