BITTERS by Joe Fisher

Joe

There is no concept of more than one type of unique. There is alteration. Existence does not occur in just one physical state. Look at anything, it does not persist in the same physical state. So anything is actually a sequence of physically existent states, each of which is unique, ie different, from the previous state.

Paul

Joe

You cannot, obviously, but this is not what I am saying. All we really know about existence is that it occurs (which must be unique), but there is alteration, ie it occurs differently (which must be a different unique). If you watch anything long enough you will see change to 'it'. If you want to get on with life, then put it under an electron microscope, and at the level of differentiation that is capable of, you will see more change. So what we conceptualise as 'existence', ie bush, toe, etc, is not what occurs. It only appears to be a persistent entity, because we are deeming it so from the perspective of superficial characteristics. In terms of its existence, it is really a sequence of physically existent states, which just appear the same at a higher level.

Or to put it another way. " Existence can only occur in one unique physical state once". Exactly. But it does not stay in that state, does it? The point is that you are equating that state with 'objects' as conceptualised by us, not how those 'objects' physically occur.

Paul

Joe

This is the last time I am going to repeat this.

"Existence is occurring in one unique physical state once." Yes, obviously. But equally obviously, it does not stay in that state, does it? In other words, objects are not one physically existent state, they just appear to us to be so.

Paul

No, but existence des not occur just the once does it? What we refer to as the bush (or whatever) 'alters'.

Paul

Have you checked out this place and how does it align with your ideas?

Hi Joe,

I just read your submission and I am amused. That is not what I was expecting. It is your last sentence that is the most profound. "I have never really been interested in logic." It reminds me of an ancient greek discussion in logic that starts off with this statement; "I am Cretean, and all Creteans are liars". There were connundrums all over your submission. Here is another example; "Light cannot move through light." Yet I am sure you have seen two flashlights cross beams. Here is another example; "The Universe is not all that difficult to understand. If you are familiar with the Rock, Paper Scissors hand gesture selection game, you have already acquired all of the information you will ever need in order to understand how the Universe actually operates." But I am sure you know that if we really understood how the the universe operates then we could solve the issue of death. I am not seeing the issue of death being resolved in the rock, paper, scissors game. Here is another example; "However, as the snowflake studies and the DNA and fingerprints studies have shown, there is only one of anything real or imagined once." Yet you use the number 2 as if there were a second snowflake, or second fingerprint, or second DNA. It is stated in the scienfic literure that all of your cells contain indentical copies of your DNA except for you sex cells. That is identical in relationship to the information that the DNA contains not in the exact atomic configurations. I reserve the best one for last. "All information is abstract codswallop." Was I informed by your "abstract codswallop"

Anyway, it is good to see you still kicking.

Jim Akerlund

Joe

"Paul,

Because you lost the argument on my blog, I am going to respond here. I have never "conceived" of my toe. You apparently do not know the difference between conception and perception, just as your version of existentialism has prevented you from understanding what the word last actually means."

Perception is conception. You speak of a unique state. But what you are referring to is not a physically unique state. It is how we perceive/conceive reality, for fairly obvious reasons, ie we need to get on with life.

What is existent, ie determines the reality at that time, is the physically existent state of whatever comprises it. Objects 'exist', in the sense of what we think are objects, in a sequence of discrete definitive physically existent states. You know this. Take any object, and you know it does not continue to exist in the same state. The bush is unique, there is only one bush, it is different from other bushes, the garden wall, birds in the garden, etc. But in terms of physical existence, bush is ontologically incorrect. It just looks as if it is the same thing physically, because we are defining bush on the basis of superficial physical characteristics.

Paul

Joe

The point is about what constitutes uniqueness in existence.

Paul

Joe

Indeed, as I keep saying. But the question is, what is unique? What we refer to as St Pauls (or any other such thing) is not unique over time. What is unique is its physically existent state at any given time. So what we know of as St Pauls, or any other thing, does not physically exist. A sequence of physically existent states is what occurs, which, at a higher level of conception give the appearance of continuation.

Paul

Joe

I am fully aware there is no such thing as time in any given reality, by definition, it occurs once and is a unique physically existent state. Reality is only spatial. Time is concerned with the rate of change to the subsequent reality in the sequence. So there is only ever a 'present' which exists. The point is that what exists is a physically existent state of whatever comprises it, not the objects as we conceive them. Which is what I said at the outset and have been repeating ever since.

Here is a quote from your essay:

"The fact is that had I truly wished to find out anything about a real toe, the only way I could have done so would have been by taking my shoes and socks off and by looking at one of my real toes. Real snowflakes are unique. Real toes are unique. I presently possess a set of real toes no other person who has ever lived, who is presently alive, or who will ever live anywhere in the future, had, has, or will ever come to possess"

At any given time the reality which manifests as your toe is different from any other time. It is not your toe, or snowflake, or whatever, that is unique. As conceived this does not physically exist. What is unique, and what exists at any given time is a physically existent state of the 'thing'. The 'thing' only appears as a 'thing' because we are defining 'thing' on the basis of superficial physical characteristics, which are not what physically occurs. Indeed, we even rationalise that conception by speaking of 'it changes', when it does at this superficial level. Which is of course a contradiction, because if it has changed, then it is no longer it, it is something else.

Paul

BITTERS, nice essay title. Straight forward.

IT from bIT or bIT from IT. Are we bitters trying to bit it or get bitter about it?

Mr. Fisher,

I loved your essay, and I would rate it an A in contradistinction to all those Z's trapped in binary space. Yours is recommended reading for all those assimilated, and who are one with one, or one with zero, and unable to switch between the two. Yours is a breath of fresh air that should bring all those wannabe Z's back to R, i.e. reality. By the way, if you ever type in "thumb" I would be interested in knowing what reference you find most interesting.

Cheers.

Zoran

Joe Fisher,

Thanks for your comments. As you have pointed out, it is not the age of our galaxy which is 4.5 billion years but it is the age of our earth which is 4.5 billion years. You have obviously confused. Age of our galaxy is about 13.8 billion years. So there is no exaggeration in the time scale for life to have existed on earth as it is supposed to be of the order of about 3- 3.5 billion years.

I will go through your essay and post my comments soon.

good luck,

sreenath.

Joe,

Advocates of the Anthropic Principle (AP) speak of the subatomic world which they can't see and quite often attribute the same subatomic attributes to the macro world. Not being a mathematician or a real scientist,I tend to agree with your thinking of uniqueness but are you just speaking of the macro world?

Being a humanities guy and a late science enthusiast, I attribute AP beliefs to man's anthropomorphic nature.

I enjoyed your essay, especially the passion of your beliefs.

Jim

Joe,

I typed in "God's thumb" and Google returned only 12,500 results. Fancy that, I was expecting a lot more.

Zoran.

Dear Joe,

You have write interesting essay in specific style. For my more important also that you want to be realist. As we known it is not so welcomed by majority of ultramodern scientists. But truth is not depend from quantity of adherents!

Check my work and you will find one supporter to your approach. I believe we can have many common points and we will cooperate.http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1804

ESSAY

Best wishes,

George

Hi Joe,

I agree that the Universe should happen once in one way. Rather than parallel Universes making a Multiverse I think ours must be infinitely large with finite observation points - which of course are all also unique.

Best wishes,

Antony

Joe,

My Dear, you didn't respond.

In worse case you can just tell - "sorry no time"!

Dear Joe

Original approach, nicely written and pleasant to read. However, it does not resolve issues like clock synchronisation on satellites :). Your principle of one is actually the true statement by which I started (1=1) deriving principles of motion. Reading them you might recognize the underlying principle of infinite uniqueness, you write about, of elusive one, now and here, the dynamic space-time position in which all scalar operations are unchanged and reflected. The position where 1=1/1 (by any convention of writing, 1v=1s/1t), i.e. the dynamic position in which altered space, over the, for the same amount altered time measures unaltered speed of light, thus measuring linear flow of time and linear propagation of space (1=1n/1n).

Btw, I have toes as well, which are infinitely different from yours... but at the same time, I hope you'll agree with me, they are infinitely similar. I guess it make sense to search for the matrix of what makes toes - toes (yours or mine).

My essay is at the address

http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1876

It would be nice to read your comment

best regards

Andrej

Jeo

Now its my turn to comment on you: every 'it' & 'bits' have single occurrences too!

Thanks

Dipak

Dear Joe,

I do agree with you that everything happens only once, although I derive this conclusion from KQID worldview that Existence including us, our God/s and our Multiverse happens only once every absolute digital time T ≤ 10^-1000 seconds. I do think that Information as bits are fiction but real. Fiction because we make it up, and it is real because as Landauer and experimentally proven that any deletion of bits produce heat or entropy. Thus, information is physical. I enjoyed reading your unconventional essay BITTERS and original creative idea. We are all the seekers of the truth, we shall discover it no matter where it is hiding, if necessary as usual we fictionalize it according to our own image as Protogoras's measurement. Please comment on my essay and rank it if you desire. Best wishes, Leo KoGuan

Your "only once" theory reminds me a bit of how chaos theorists tend to approach physics -- it reminds me a bit of Smolin's idea that physical laws merely arrive from repetitions of similar events. Good luck in the competition and thank you for reading my essay, I appreciate that you've given this a lot of thought and I will re-read again.

"Reality is always observable, objective and obvious, once" -- strikes me--is this how you resolve the measurement problem?

Cheers and good luck!

Jennifer