How to Hack Human History by John Brodix Merryman

thank you very much John,

You really hit the nail on the top.

The score(s) you gave me is whet gives me more confidence, you don't even have to realize it here in numbers, for me it is perfect, because after the "1's" I began to loose the mentality and thought that my thinking was inappropriate.

I understand that the so called "realists" cannot accept my way of thinking, but in my turn I say that also the "realist" way of thinking is an availability in Total Simultaneity, they only have their own "program" or available explanation. And... In Total Simultaneity they are also represented, so if they they do not agree, they do not agree with themselves.

good luck and thank you

Wilhelmus.

Dear John

Thank you for your encouraging words.

I posted this answer also on my thread, but now you will know thet I reacted.

Of course the what we call BB , a something from nothing , is not my favorite explanation of reality ether, you are right when yoy say that a dynamic universe without a zero point is more understandable as a deterministic ad infinitum till zero. It is nice to think of the heartbeat of the universe, the only thing is that this comparison has one default , there is a beginning and an end to the heartbeat but just because of the fact that we humans see ourselves as causal and so mortal. Once we leave the causality that is the origin of the arrow of time we are FREE.

You mention a very important thought : "The present seems to move from the Past to the Future, it is actually changing the future int the past" of course this is pure logic, because "every future" will be a "past". Which means in my perception that ALL possible FUTURES are available in TS as Pasts, so future memory , so available as a future past in our time/life lines. Your energy coupling in this perception is something I have to think about, but when we are regarding e=mc2 , and in this way trying to achieve that our reality is non destructible, so real real and not just a thought or a creation of our consciousness, then I am tended towards the thought that this energy/mass problem is also only a deduction to try to explain our reality (one of the infinity).

Each human being has a "bubble of awareness" as you are citing. Indeed this bubble is referring to my SSS, the Subjective Simultaneity Sphere ( see http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1370 "The Consciousness Connection". You see consciousness as an energy I see it as a field that is like a catalyst for the mergence of excitations of the matter field, but both views are a form of "energy".

And indeed John, people are explain everything with data that they receive from their bubble of awareness, which in his turn is limited by the horizon of his observations, once we thought that the earth was at the center of all, but for those people it was "real", now we think that our bubble was inflated (BICEP) but we are only still observing a little part of the whole shabang, like people before us. Imagine the heartbeat of your universe but then expanded to an infinite amount of bubbles...beautifull isn't it ?

Wilhelmus

John,

I like the way you take such an arcane subject as money, credit, banks and such and successfully relate it to energy, information, religion and money's antithetical roles.

You paint through metaphor and analogy a clear picture but unfortunately I fear it's lost to the biased perceptions of those with power and control - "like monarchs who could not see beyond their self interest to understand their larger role and function in society."

Your apt description perhaps dooms us until the collapse you mention. But even then, I wonder. The last collapse seemed to do little to foster sane "awareness."

Jim

"Biology deals with this wave pattern of increasing and collapsing complexity by having individual organisms die and pass on their genetic code."

I found this fascinating, but confusing. Are you saying that human minds (and bodies?) get too complex for the universe's good, and so they have to be "edited" through the process of dying, thus leaving only their DNA (and memes) behind for the next generation to use as ingredients with which to sort of start over? That sort of makes sense to me.

Also, I think you might be interested in an idea I've been promoting, which is creating a global brain database that collects and shares (freely) all the ways individuals have found to "use X to get Y", with X being excess resources and Y being needed resources. (It would be categorized using Pascal's triangle, with "matter" and "energy/information" as the top two elements, and then breaking the possible combinations of those two things down for each level of detail, to eventually, theoretically, cover everything in existence.) Having such a simple, searchable, bottom-up (emergent) database of proven results/solutions is a way to organize all the "conflicting interests" that you mention.

Dear John,

I appreciate both your paper and your beautiful reply. I mostly agree with you and what you say made me stop for a little while in my job, walk out and start considering your concepts, one by one, under the trees of a park. The result of those thoughts are expressed in the following lines.

Basic sciences have shown, from their very beginning, the greatest interest to understand the world as well as the laws governing it. They have assumed again and again that knowing reality and predicting its behavior, both aspects are the same thing. Nobody doubts, even building on such oversimplified basis, that sciences have provided numerous and overwhelming examples of their validity; one can find at the present time that most scientists uncritically accept that the initially unavoidable assumptions, made in order to go straight ahead in research, those assumptions are in fact the immovable principles for the functioning of the world. The initial breath of fresh air that signified the birth of science, quickly vitiated and today prevents us from seeing with new eyes the complexity of the world, of human beings and their becoming. Science has betrayed her own consciousness.

This is why it is absolutely necessary to review, with a critical sight, what we mean by knowing, by doing and by knowing what to do. Hence the false choice between theory and praxis, forgetting that every theory finds its justification in experience; abstraction, as the explanation of reality by means of the impossible, the search of universals as an extension of the strictly local, towards the global, and its summit, action, developing a response ability for our movements at the interior of existence, all that needs the resources of humans. And, on their side, humans mustn't be alienated by a science being stubborn about considering the world as if we weren't there! I think it should be quite the contrary, namely, as science is one of the main achievements of human thought, provided she ennobles man and makes him living with responsibility.

The "antidote" to prevent the inability in considering men as integral part of the stuff developed by sciences, a spiritual blindness, is the implementation of an integrating discourse without leaving anything outside which concerns humans. The old disjunctive between the ideal and what actually happens in the flowing of time, between necessity and contingence, between universal and particular, puts the solution not at the decision point, but at the enriching fusion of both branches. That's the way the universal particular and the particular universal emerge as the solution to the contingence of the laws of nature. Reality manifests as a play of contingence, Yes, man can take himself into account while knowing and describing the world by fusing the contraries, in a never ending and never complete hug, because whatever is touched by human beings turns into an enigma, as he is himself one.

What can we do? Even though science is not the only possible answer, she certainly is a privileged path so to structure the human intellect; this is so because of the direct projection of the structure of human intellect that mathematics actually is. In other words, science, which is a product of human mind, goes back to man in order to draw him once more. Nonetheless, this is not a consistent lie undistinguishable from truth; it rather is the helicoidal construction, which cannot go on a straight line, since straight lines are the product of induction, which hardly fits into natural thought, unless mathematics becomes integrated to the structure of the spirit.

Concluding, sciences shall accept that the only possibility for them to keep their consciousness intact is... being willing to change (i.e. to inspect their basic assumptions) whenever is necessary. Like seeing is the function of view, believing is the function of childhood, and only children know that the horizon, even it looks like a border line, is the mark of the beginning of the invisible. From the horizon as the limit of knowledge (Kant), up to that treat with things, fixing the horizon (Zubiri), passing by a construction of a vital horizon (Ortega y Gasset), human beings surely roam through their lives thinking, acting, dreaming...Capable of the highest ideals, as well as the worst nightmares, man will always be a god while he dreams, but a beggar while he thinks (Hölderlin).

Best regards,

Alex

Dear John,

I thank you very much for your openness of thinking. As I already told you, I completely agree with you and I celebrate that you like to watch from a distance: open spaces are essential to have an idea of the entire landscape. So, after that, you deserve that I widely open my heart to you in a matter as fundamental as time is. But before that I must prevent you that, as it seems to me is your case, I am not a draft animal, I mean that I usually don't react after whiplashes, on the contrary I frequently resist: I have payed a high price for my freedom in thinking, and I'm sure you know quite well what I'm talking about. I am convinced that a construction of scientific knowledge without taking into account that science is nothing without scientists who, before being scientists, are humans, is a ridiculous, irresponsible, absurd and even monstrous and grotesque task.

We often mistake considering time as equivalent to duration. Starting with the works of Galileo, the isomorphism between time and the line of the real numbers, stablished once and for all that instants in time are points on a straight line. This, of course, banishes us from the whole panorama of the description of nature. That is a consequence of pretending that things are as they are independently of our presence or absence from the cosmic stage. Certainly not, and quantum mechanics, dipping in the same deterministic point of view, still had to recognize that the observer was there for a reason, and he couldn't be innocuous in knowing reality, whilst measurements are on the way.

Well, that is the reason why I've been thinking since almost thirty years ago, when I talked a lot with my supervisor in the PhD in physics, Professor Prigogine, that all this story about multi-dimensional, multi-cosmic, "reality" is nothing but a projection of our deterministic brains. In fact, all we know, all we experience about reality is always past: we cannot see the present, we usually suffer it, one way or another. So the things, in one occasion I said to Prigogine, "well Professor, then there exists only one dimension, namely, TIME, and what we actually call SPACE is nothing but the trace of time, this is to say, past". Professor Prigogine looked pensive after my statement; few minutes later he said that my idea looked a little bit extreme, however I might be right since I was young... I am not young any more, but I still think the same. The only way one can dip into the present is dying. Time is not duration and that is why practically all the equations of physics are perfectly indifferent about the sign of "t": if you change t by -t you will get exactly the same result in all the differential expressions based upon classical mechanics. Even Schrödinger's equation is deterministic, of course, as well as the mathematical characterization of Boltzmann's theorem. That is why time cannot be either a parameter nor a fourth dimension: it's got to be some sort of "operator", comparable with momentum, position and total energy (hamiltonian) operators. Only then Heisenberg's uncertainty relations will have a real meaning.

So, speaking frankly, I think we have really missed the mark from the very beginning (i.e. more than four centuries ago!). The amazing thing is that we have said few things not so stupid. But it is time now to rethink the role of mankind in the generation of knowledge. Self confidence is a good thing as far as it doesn't lead us to be arrogant: you say well, our knowledges and movements in the cosmos are so "viscous", slow, clumsy, naive, that we should be extremely careful about the range of our achievements. In the scope of time, past is space already done (faith, oblivion), future is space not yet done (hope, ignorance) and present is time itself (love, knowledge). Forgive my pseudo-theological allusions, but what I want to say is that we should take seriously all human nature, not just the part that suits me.

I am sorry, dear John, for I've been too long in my reply but, I feel good "talking" with you by this means. As a matter of fact, besides the contest, which is pretty interesting, the "colateral effect" of these communications among the different authors is the best part of it. Thanks for your patience and I hope all this be of some usefulness.

Best wishes.

Alex

Dear John,

Thank you for your reply. Your arguments forced me to have a look on some texts that came to my mind while reading you. Namely, I though about some of the ideas of Spinoza as you argued about space and time, for the Dutch philosopher thinks that thought and extent are the attributes of the one substance (which is infinite in itself, with an infinite number of attributes, each one of them being infinite), so that nothing is "outside" of it since, in fact, there does not exist any "outside". Well, I suppose that your own idea of space as an irreducible entity gets very close to Spinoza's conception. And referring to the concept of time as pure action, Spinoza says in the same tenor that action is the deployment of the substance (as a matter of fact, God, in the philosophical system of Spinoza) by means of the temporal unity of man. Ergo, time precedes existence, and human action needs time as a backdrop.

Indeed, information travels not at infinite speed, as we have a limit, c. Now, this reminds me that whatever we say, we pretend to know or to describe, we must have an irremovable referent, i.e. a frame of reference with respect to which we can say whatever: Ptolemy (Earth), Copernicus (Sun), Protagoras (man), sound (air), light (ether...or light itself), many human beings (God), etc., even this writing I am doing right now needs the referent of alphabet, language, syntax, and so on. Apparently infinite can only fit in human spirit; I think that is so for simultaneity as well. To will, more than to determine, is to get an idea of possibility: reality is the complex of possibilities. You remind me, once again, Spinoza when you say that free will is a sort of oxymoron, and I agree with you: we are not simply actors on the stage of space-time, but we rather create the stage being there and acting. But once this process begins, not only do we make the stage, but the stage makes us too. The main problem I see with determinism is not being simply false, because it is not, but that it pretends that everything is exclusively fixed by previous conditions, not allowing the appearance of novelty, of the radically unexpected, of emergence. Now, in fact, nature provides us with so many examples of emerging systems, proving that structures are not the ensemble of parts, but the collection of possible correlations between those parts, so far that even after the disappearance of them, correlations stay (e.g. fossils). That is why I think space as the trace of time (which is not duration), not as an effect coming out from a cause, unless we accept this view as the price to pay for our particular way on perceiving the phenomenal world.

About expanding universe, I do agree with you, provided they are not confused space and time as simple degrees of freedom. Physics has very often assumed homogeneity and isotropy of space, in an attempt to fulfill the conditions for solving non-linear equations, and that's understandable; however, we in general forget pretty soon that such conditions were exceptional and oversimplifying, so we entangle the feet with our own games. This is why I would like to talk about your phrase: "when we measure time, we measure actions, but when we measure space, be it distance, area, or volume, we are measuring space." What measuring is? Measuring is comparing couples of systems, assuming that one of them is, at least for a while, fixed. The "landing" or "shoulder" not in time, but in our understanding, are an indispensable condition for measuring anything. When we measure time we compare actions and when we measure space we compare historical moments, this is to say, places of the past. Of course, void is not the carbon copy of nothingness, since the former is actually something whilst the later cannot simply be, otherwise it wouldn't be nothingness. Light needs a propagation medium, which is light itself. Einstein spent almost twenty years before he realized that although it is true that ether as such doesn't exist, light does need a medium. I think that medium, light, is a direct property of the geometrical structure of space, this is to say, of time (from there the particular metrics of space-time).

I don't think there is a single center of the universe, i.e. it is nowhere or, equivalently, it is everywhere; as you assert right, each one is a fortiori the center of the universe; I'd rather prefer to say that each one is the center of his or her own universe. I am not quite sure though that either the presence or the absence of gravity is the only explanation of contraction or expansion, respectively, of space. I suppose science still has a very long way to go. However it is puzzling too the fact of remembering those old models (Greek atomists like Democritus, Descartes, etc.) praising vortices organizing reality; I am afraid that, for the time being, these are more philosophical than scientific subjects. Nevertheless, I hope scientific thought will eventually dig in them.

Thanks John and excuse me for the delay answering your deep reply.

Regards,

Alex

Your first three paragraphs hit the nail on the head. The outline also has one problem - I think the solution cannot be intellectually comprehended by a vast number of intelligent people. The vast numbers need comprehend only how to function within the solution. The solution must increase the complexity of society.

I like to think my paper presents a possible method to the Tower of Babel syndrome.

I offer some suggestions on a view of money. Milton Friedman's Free to Choose is a good reference. There is a difference between money and currency. Currency is the medium of exchange. Its advantage is people can trade for useful goods without having to possess the useful thing the other wants. Currency can be hard (gold or gold redeemable, etc.) or paper (backed by government fiat). Money can be currency or actual goods one trader wants such as in barter transactions. The US dollar is by government fiat and backed by force of arms. Therefore, the dollar is subject to government's fickle nature. The government is responsible for the vicissitudes to which you allude. Of course, the government wants to blame someone else. Banks and financial institutions must act as government desires. Otherwise, the government by force of arms will shut them down. Wealth can be stored by holding the useful items. Other ways of dealing with government currency crash are moving the money, people voting with their feet, preparing such as the doomsday preppers, etc. The more recent innovation of the bitcoin offers a way to a type of currency set by the market and not by the government. The bitcoin is enjoying some popularity but the world governments are disadvantaged and, therefore, will probably take a hard line against it. Also, the government has taken a regulatory line against barter and cash transactions, which easily avoids taxes (another form of money).

Today, religion seems to not include science. Indeed, when a tidbit of the universe becomes science, it ceases to be religion. However, science still fails to define morals to run a society. My paper offers a way around this. So, religion and science must coexist for mankind to advance.

You seem to agree that currency by government is morally evil. The result is inflation or the low interest rates fostered by government in an attempt to have their cake and eat it without tax.

How would you change the system to have currency or money be viewed as a social contract that government could not abuse?

JM

I think I'm beginning to see our difference. Reading between the lines, I think you are following the Keynesian derived doctrine (political/government). As the essay suggests, the Keynesian derived doctrine predictions have not only failed, the opposite of their forecasts has happened. I have limited understanding of economics, but I can recognize Friedman's predictions were correct. Therefore, I think his model (monetarists) is the better model. I argue this without real economic understanding, but based of the science that the model that predicts is better regardless of how weird it sounds.

I suggest your next step should be to get Free to Choose. It is a book and a 10 part TV series (DVD) (comes in 2 series - the first/older is much better, the second is nearly worthless). The end of each segment has his opponents asking questions and making statements with Friedman replying. As near as I can tell, everything you are addressing is in the series. You may know more than I at the end of the series as you have a real interest in the subject. BTW part of Friedman's solution was to abolish the Federal Reserve.

I left a copy of this on my site, also

Friedman's view of the 30s is different than your's.

As a teenager on a farm, I had a pacer. Her foals helped finance my college.