THE CLOUD OF UNKNOWING & THE ITSY QUBITSY UNIVERSE by Vladimir F. Tamari

Vladimir,

As usual, another strikingly beautiful essay! Congratulations. I very much agree that many have "fallen into the trap of confusing our derived knowledge of Reality with Reality itself."

I had forgotten about "the Cloud of Unknowing". I must review it. Your twist on the blind men and the elephant is excellent! I too have an elephant in my essay (not yet posted).

You have excellent insight into reality, from your abacus (hardware/software) to the handprint on the wall.

I am in 100% agreement that "lack of confidence in the absolute existence of Reality" underlies much of the problems in physics, and with your discussion of specifics in the paragraph under figure 2. Figure 3 is also exceptional.

Thanks for writing such an enjoyable and enlightened essay.

Edwin Eugene Klingman

Vladimir

"that not only is our knowledge of Reality relative and uncertain, but that Reality itself is relative and uncertain"

While I am not sure this is "unstated", this is the problem with physics. It is functioning on a misconception as to how physical existence occurs. In the simplest of terms, this 'new order' involves the presumption of some form of indefiniteness in physical existence. Which cannot be so, otherwise there would not be existence, and difference. That contradiction is then rationalised by increasingly bizarre means, all of which do not correspond with reality. The 'old order' was never followed through to its logical conclusion. Had that happened then it would have revealed the state which the 'new order' thinks it is addressing, but without the incorrect presumption of indefiniteness. One of these rationalisations being, for example, the role of the observer. The problem with this being that what occurred has already happened, and indeed the observer does not interact with what has happened anyway. So either way, the notion that the observer, or the subsequent processing, can have an effect on the physical circumstance is nonsense.

"Information is an artifact of human thought imposed on Nature to describe some of its aspects"

Not so, or at least it should not be so. Valid information must be representational of something else. I have noticed a theme in these essays whereby everything is being deemed as information, because it informs us. But this is a meaningless definition, since all we have is knowledge. Furthermore, to be valid, and one presumes we are not concerned with invalid information, it must not be "imposed", but correspond with, albeit that could be at a higher level of conceptualisation than that at which reality occurs.

However, you are correct in stating that there are real difficulties in compiling knowledge of, and effecting experimentation on, physical existence at the existential level. But this has nothing to do with the "philosophy of knowing". It is a function of the physics of knowing.

We know by virtue of the fact that we (and all sentient organisms, including an alien if he/she visited us) receive physical input. What is physically existent (which includes us) is so, independently of the mechanisms whereby awareness of it is enabled. This includes hypothesis, because to be valid that must adhere to the rules of sensing, otherwise it is just belief. In other words, hypothesis is effectively virtual sensing, it is what could have been directly sensed had it been possible to do so. What this means is that physical existence is all that is potentially knowable to us, and that is underpinned by a physical process.

So we are trapped in an existentially closed system. That is, whilst we can only know what is within this, at least it is knowable. So your comment about "best guesses" is not correct. That only pertains with reference to all possibilities, but we can never know any other possibility. What we are doing is compiling knowledge by comparing knowledge with knowledge, and deeming as valid that which best corresponds with existence as knowable to us at that time (assuming of course valid presumptions and adherence to due process). Now, because we are within a closed system, ultimately we can reach a point where that knowledge can be deemed to be the equivalent of physical existence, ie the caveat of 'at this time' can be dropped. We will be aware of this by default, since after sufficient time no new knowledge arises. This is because there is no extrinsic reference available to judge validity.

The practical problems (the equivalent of your Cloud of Unknowing) revolve around the sheer complexity and scale of physical existence at the existential level. Apart from conceiving properly how physical existence occurs (which is a good start!), there is no way in which experimentation is capable of differentiating separate physically existent states. A reality being the physically existent state of whatever comprises it at a given time. Apart from the vanishingly small scales involved, we are, as you say in the Intro, only receiving a representation of it anyway. So we now have the difficulty of unravelling precisely what was received, which was existent of itself whilst being a representation of what occurred, then discerning any physical influence that could have been exerted whilst it was travelling, then understanding the precise nature of the interaction which resulted in it, which thereby reveals what occurred.

Paul

Hi Vladimir,

Good to see you again participating in this contest!

For now, I just wanted to mention that I noticed an error in your abstract:

"In analog computing devices such as the abacus, a bead is both a thing and a number."

Abacus is not an "analog computing device".

Best wishes,

Lev

Let me give you just two quotes.

1. "What is an analog computer?

Simply, an analog computer is a computing device that has two distinguishing characteristics:

1. Performs operations in a truly parallel manner. Meaning it can perform many calculations all at the same time.

2. And operates using continuous variables. Meaning it uses numbers that that change not in steps, but change in a smooth continuous manner.

By constrast, a digital computer can only perform sequential (one at a time) operations, and operates on discrete (noncontinuous) numbers. "

http://www.cowardstereoview.com/analog/

2. "An analog computer is a form of computer that uses the continuously changeable aspects of physical phenomena such as electrical, mechanical, or hydraulic quantities to model the problem being solved. In contrast, digital computers represent varying quantities symbolically, as their numerical values change. As an analog computer does not use discrete (exact) values, but rather continuous (approximate) values . . ."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analog_computer

I dont think an analogue computers needs to do parallel computations. It may often be the case, but a slide rules is a good example of an analogue computers that does single operations.

Otherwise I agree with Lev. Abacus and difference engine are mechanical but numbers are represented by discrete digits, so they are digital.

Vladimir, it's good to see you in the contest and I congratulate you on a clear and well illustrated essay.

You say that if the message we perceive is distorted then we cannot assume we have the correct answer. To some extent yes but eventually as more information is gathered our certainty increases.

For example, in your elephant picture the blind observers must have been unlucky to find things in just the right places to make it seem like they were touching an elephant. If they carry on they would soon find that the parts do not join up. We can never be absolutely certain but we can increase our certainty to a higher degree. Isn't that good enough?

In Einstein's original formulation of relativity the observer played a role, but when Minkowski reformulated it as geometry the observer was no longer needed. People have tried to reinterpret quantum mechanics to get ird of the observer but without success, yet the world was here before any observers. Was that history an illusion of the observer?

Vladimir,

"I hope my meaning was otherwise clear that the physical bead (it) and the abstract number (information of sorts) were equivelant."

Unfortunately, I can't agree with that. And the reasons for the disagreement are not found in today's physics, but in the area of pattern recognition. The reason is related to the distinction between the class of actual objects (e.g. a class of stars) and its informational representation. It appears that without having a separate "informational" class representation ("description") that is responsible for object generation, it is impossible to justify the regularity, or stability of classes of objects, i.e. why the new stars have the same structure as some of the previous stars, and it seems also impossible to justify/explain induction. (Of course this goes back all the way to Plato and Aristotle.)

That was Loretnz's view of course. It works but requires a special reference frame that you can't detect. Poincare understood relativity a bit better but still hald a conventionalist view where he thought it was right to choose a reference frame by convention because that is the simplest view. Perhaps that is nearer your position. Nothing wrong with that way of thinking, it is just not the modern view.

Vladimir

"Just today someone told me epistemology is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge"

I would not worry about that, philosophy is a complete waste of time. All you have to understand is that physical existence is all that we can potentially know. We can only know what it is possible for us to know, and we cannot externalise ourselves from existence in order to ascertain what it 'is'. And knowing is based on a physical process, ie we receive physical input, which is commonly known as seeing, hearing, feeling, etc. Stick with common sense.

Paul

Lev

Physically, there is no such state as continuous. Or at least to be continuous would mean the same state perpetually. For difference to occur there must be discreteness (ie change by steps)

Paul

Vladimir

Bah, you should have not have said that and set me off!

Leaving aside the fact that SR is not what generally people think it is, the thinking in Einstein which supposedly substantiates the concept of relativity does not involve observation. Because there is no light available for potential observers to observe with. You find me some. Lightening will not do it, unless you want your eyes burnt out. The point being that his second postulate is irrelevant, because he did not use it as defined. All Einstein did was utilise a constant by which to calibrate distance and duration. And for want of something and because he thought this accommodated observation, he described it as light. But it was just a constant, it could have been anything, and it is not observational light. So this whole exercise, including hs own efforts, in squaring light constancy with rate of change is a complete waste of time, because the problem was never there to begin with.

Space and time, ie the rate at which reality alters, are absolute, it occurs independently of us, and definitively so. By conflating existence and the representation thereof (ie light), in failing to allow for observation, Einstein shifted the real time differential which is in the receipt of light from that to the other end of the process, ie deeming it to be a feature of existence itself. This incorrect presumption of indefiniteness is carried through into QM. Measurement cannot "affect the sytstem randomly", or indeed in anyway whatsoever, because to be able to measure something it has already occurred. Apart from which is observing you receive, ie interact with, light, not what occurred. All this nonsense about observers, etc, is just a device to try and rationalise out the fundamental flaws in the theories.

Paul

Lev

This distinction is false. Every actual object is different from every other actual object (leaving aside that physically there is no such thing as object, but a sequence of physically exisent states which appears to be an object, because certain superficial defining physical features persist over time). So one cannot actually have a 'class', or only of one state

Its "informational representation" is just another way of describing its superficial characteristics. Physically nothing is the same as anything else. At a higher level of conceptualisation, one can discern similarities, but this has nothing to do with 'information'. Indeed, what this concept actually relates to physically, is a moot question.

Paul

Paul,

I'm very sorry that you disrespect you *most powerful* (informational) ability to recognize patterns, e.g. to recognize a cat you haven't seen before as a "cat".