The Outcomes of Logical Analysis Are Unpredictable by Lorraine Ford

Hello Lorraine :-),

The question is only about "grasping" (understanding) the structure of "IF ..."

Physics gives us a scientific picture of the world: "If there is a "big bang", then born as a result of the WORDS, LANGUAGE and MIND ...

Thus, the main question for cognition: THE PRIMORDIAL ONTOLOGICAL STRUCTURE.

Vladimir

Dear Lorraine,

Yes, your example pushes thinking to the next step, to the ultimate, deepest analysis ... I ask myself the main question: what kind of structure underlies not only the "life world", any events in it, but also the Universe as a whole. Therefore, the "thinking creature" in me is an observer who is inside this structure ("inscribed" in it) and observes the ABSOLUTE (unconditional) FORMs of the existence of matter (absolute states), as a result of interaction ("coincidence of opposites") of which LIFE is born and the very thinking and self-conscious being - we humans. IN-FORMA-TION is a phenomenon. NOUMEN, which gives rise to the phenomenon of "information" - is "ontological (cosmic, structural) memory." At the heart of the Universe, the "life world", the phenomenon of thinking and consciousness lies a primordial generating (ontological) structure. The concept of "structure" is the key, basic for science as a whole. Recall the "les structures mere" ("generating", "maternal") Bourbaki in the "Architecture of Mathematics". Those, this is a structural ontological approach. It is the unity of ultimate analysis and ultimate synthesis.

That is, the thought is constantly working on the question: what (which structure) generates "IF" and "THAT" ... that is, I try to simulate the process of generating more and more new structures and meanings.

Respectfully,

Vladimir

Dear Lorraine,

1. On the understanding of "matter". "Schrodinger's cat" will not help here ... Quantum mechanics is a parametric (phenomenological, operationalist) theory without an ontological basification (justification) ...

To understand is to "grasp the structure" (G. Gutner "Ontology of mathematical discourse"). This is true for mathematics and physics. Today, physics has run into "dark matter", "anti-matter", "quarks", "gluons", and "singularity". In order to "grasp" the basic structure, it is necessary that the holistic paradigm -- the Universum as a whole -- come to the aid of the atomistic paradigm ("sand grain paradigm"). Here we need a new deeper ONTOLOGY - the ontology of "coincidence of opposites".

Scientists have such a metaphor: "Matter" = "Proteus of Nature".

Let us recall the ancient Greek mythology of Proteus, his daughter Eidotheus, the "goddess of form" and Menelaus. Eidothea is the daughter of the sea deity Proteus and the goddess of sea sand Psamata. When the ship of Menelaus, returning from the Trojan War, was brought by storm into Egypt, where Proteus reigned, Eidotheus told Menelaus how to get his father to show him the way to return to Greece. And let's also remember that the "first entity" is FORM. (Aristotle). From "form" - one step to understanding the nature of INFORMATION, its ontological status.

Here we need a new (old) view of matter in the spirit of Plato: Matter is that from which all forms are born. But taking into account all the problems of physics and cosmology. What are the FORMS? Absolute (unconditional) forms of existence of matter, that is, absolute (unconditional) states. Here the deepest ontology should come - DIALECTIC ONTOLOGY.

2. About the logic. What logic should be taken to move together to the truth? And what language should we take as a basis in order to better understand each other? The language of Nature? The language of matter? What is its ontological structure?

Mathematician Alexander Zenkin writes in the article SCIENTIFIC COUNTER-REVOLUTION IN MATHEMATICS:

"About thirty years ago, for the sake of" sports interest "I began to collect various" logics "used in modern logical-mathematical treatises. When their amount exceeded the second hundred, it has become clear: if the logic can be selected "on a taste" (or even can be constructed "on a need"), such notion as "science" becomes here simply inappropriate. Perhaps, the situation somewhat reminds the famous "Babylon" epic: the sounds - symbols of abstract speeches are almost the same, but the sense, if that is present, of everyone is peculiar. What was the end of the First Babylon is described in The Holy Bible ... "

At the end of the article, A. Zenkin concludes: "the truth should be drawn ..."

What logic to apply? How many "categories" and "numbers" are necessary and sufficient to "draw the truth"? I believe that the only generating logic - "the mother of all logics" - DIALECTIC ONTOLOGIC. The logic of coincidence of ontological opposites.

Can you name another "logic of all logics" for "grasping" and "drawing" the base structure?

Respectfully,

Vladimir

Dear Lorraine,

Thank you very much for your clarifications and answers. I invite you to look at my ideas and my understanding of Logic ("Logic of all logics"), on the basis of which Nature talks with us and my approach to the construction of the basic structure of Nature and cognition. I look forward to your critical comments and questions as this is very important to me.

You correctly wrote earlier in the FQXi Blog regarding the modern "the world being undecidable, uncomputable, and unpredictable". The current situation in the world introduces maximum Uncertainty into the existence of Humanity. Obviously, this also depends on the crisis of understanding in the philosophical basis of Fundamental Science. We all live in the hope of overcoming this crisis by joint and individual efforts to create a more sustainable joint future on planet Earth in an era of ever-increasing existential threats and risks.

Respectfully,

Vladimir

Dear Lorraine,

I look forward to your questions and critical comments on the ideas of my essay.

With best wishes, first of all health, in this difficult time for all Earthlings,

Vladimir

Hi Lorraine,

I hope your wombats, daffy ducks et al survived the fires ok. I spent much time with F&F around Aus recently. Great country in so many ways I was devastated watching the destruction.

I had to read your essay twice to really get what you were saying, lucky it was so short! But beautifully written as always. Fascinating and original way of looking at relationships, which of course I agree with. There's no direct link between the data analysis and the laws.

I found it particularly interesting as I addressed the very foundations of logical analysis and the Laws of Physics in my own essay, finding them flawed. I hope you find time to read and comment.

I don't find brevity an issue and think you talk more pertinent sense in 2 pages than many do in 9. Well done.

Very best wishes,

Peter

PS Whereabouts in Aus are you?

Dear Lorraine,

In a comment you say that "what underlies the world" has always been the same stuff, back then and right now. I agree completely!

As for 'logic', I found Schultz's discussion of algorithmic patterns vs non-algorithmic patterns very interesting. The limitations this contest focuses on are algorithmic. He suggests that the implied limitations on 'knowability' do not apply to non-algorithmic patterns.

Logical analysis occurs in the mind, and you say that "logical analysis is an aspect of the world that can't be explained by physics..."

I agree. My understanding of consciousness is as the self-interacting field, with dynamic changes induced by flows in neurons, which in turn induce changes in neurons. In such a situation every point in the local field affects every other point, and the whole process is non-algorithmic. [Of course non-linear interactions include linear approximations where appropriate, enabling 'logic', but this is a tiny part of the mind.]

Not arguing with you, just presenting my picture which I think supports your views.

I invite you to read my essay and comment.

Edwin Eugene Klingman

Dear Lorraine,

I understand that you may represent lights and sounds as numbers under certain system of representation. But when you say, "living things need to be able to respond differently to these different sets of numbers", these numbers become universal, not particular to the specific scheme of representation. How so?

You state, "This logical analysis and its associated outcome can only be represented (often only after the fact) as IF...THEN... statements." This statement does not leave a possibility for an associative processing. An associative processing results from direct activation of agents (neurons in the brain) as per the causal powers of incoming signals in hierarchy. And such processing may lead to actions, but without logically testing IF...THEN as we understand from computer codes. In fact, associative activation may also represent the relation of causal dependence of action on what the incoming signal represented, which will serve as semantics of functional or logical relation between the two and may further connect in processing where such a semantics of causal dependence statistically relates. One may ask, why do such connections form in the first place. The selection based evolution of neuronal organization can be the only basis to give rise to function of neurons that self-organize based on the statistical relevance as you correctly pointed out -- physical laws are blind to any purposeful action. As you said it yourself -- LOGICAL ANALYSIS AND ITS OUTCOMES CAN'T BE DERIVED FROM THE LAWS OF NATURE -- so selection based evolution is the only path left.

You say, "And clearly, life could not have evolved without the pre-existence of at least a small ability to logically analyse (what we would represent as) the numbers associated with the variables, and an ability to respond to this analysis." This statement goes against the understanding of selection based evolution of random modifications via mixing of chance variables. Selection and random modification are both natural physical process. Being a programmer, you may write a simple code -- think of any physical function of a set of elements with limited replenishment of resources that these elements consume. The function includes the abilities to join together in specific shapes with probabilities as atoms join to form molecules and molecules to much larger molecules and so on. Let the function also include differential need to consume resources and differential probability of replication of geometrical shapes or what ever you wish to base your probabilities on. Keep the probability differences as small as you may like. All of these functions that you coded are blind with no purpose, like laws of physics, yet, after passing of sufficient time, you will find only certain shapes are surviving, while others die out due to insufficiency of resources that different shapes needed to consume. If you observe this, then you will have to agree that any functional organization may arise, given enough time if it is better suited to survive under the blind laws of physics and enormous diversity of contexts. Even the neuronal network may emerge that represent the body conditions and their suitability limits, and neuronal function that self organize depending on the incoming signals from the environment and the the suitability of the body conditions (goals). And these neural organization may encode IF...THEN but at a huge cost of testing multitude of conditions at at each step, or simply reconnect the needful activations depending on the environmental conditions and body requirements based entirely on statistical occurrences of such relations. And such reconnections would gain stability with time requiring minimal modifications with changing context.

You say, "Computers/ AIs can't know that their high and low voltages are meant to represent zeroes and ones, and that these zeroes and ones are part of a binary digit system of representation." Indeed, this is absolutely correct. But all states of matter bear intrinsic causal correlation with the information of precursor states and what they in turn represent that make the states a reality. Physics has entirely missed out on this, that is why physics does not deal with the semantics of information, only with the bits. Though my essay is also brief, but you may find how meaningful information arise in nature.

Rajiv

Hi Lorraine,

I am always amazed that the beauty that I see around me is electromagnetic radiation generated by the motion of electrons. Our brains do all that amazing If....Then....Else.... processing and we comprehend a magnificent tiger or a songbird or...

I explore some ofthe issues that lead us to such abilities in my essay which I hope you will read and comment on , even though voting is probably finished.

I am going to do some voting now if the system lets me, as it is just past midnight in Melbourne.

Good Luck

Lockie Cresswell

Lorraine,

It'll likely be the flood next! (after the fire & pestilence) - or hopefully that was just Queensland last year. Thanks for your comments & questions on mine. I post my reply below to save you searching;

Lorraine,

Thanks. It's range leaves many 'holes' but filled by the references, and all should see there are no holes in the logic and rationale.

"Does this movement in the ether dampen and dissipate, continually requiring new movements..?"

It doesn't 'require' more motions as much as 'provide' them! The original "instability" gives the first vortex pair. Their motions then each propagate TWO more, so the Reproduction (R) number is 2, and thus the universe develops, grows AND recycles! Old cosmology, which we now know has big inconsistencies, will suggest that's 'wrong', BECAUSE it's consistent!

What is the "law of nature relationships?". There truly isn't one! Just mathematical approximations, i.e. QM. I show that QM can be RATIONAL!! Again; quantum physicist will deny it's possible because nature is illogical! I show it isn't. Can YOU decide if the equator of a sphere is rotating clockwise() or anti..(-)? Or if the poles are moving up or down? No. Those TWO momenta types change inversely by Cos Theta Latitude, and invert past 90 degrees. Bohr missed that second momentum! (i.e. Maxwell's 'curl', shown on the Poincare sphere) as he focused just on maths, so invented 'quantum spin' to confound us, and logic. I gave that mechanism last year. NOBODY has found any holes, but the specialist just turn & run away screaming to hide from it!

And I haven't suggested maths is useless at all. It's an essential 'best approximation' tool for accounting, but needs keeping in it's place. Accountants are essential, but making them CEO's is usually a companies death knell!

Your 'number' for a 'colour' proves the point. The colour spectrum is made of smooth curves with 'names' assigned to certain areas. 'RED' is a wide part of that. IR Spectroscopy tells us there are as many different 'reds' as the instruments resolution allows, many thousand! Rephrasing the question to; "Am I blonde" allows a truth value assignment, but shows it's a bout 'degrees' so there's NO "excluded middle" except for the 'convenient generalisation' we're familiar with. I found only going beyond that starts to revel the nature of nature itself!

It is a quite new way of looking at the familiar.

Very best wishes. (hope it's not a drought coming!)

Peter

Hi Lorraine,

In a previous essay comp I wrote:". With some luck some "rocky" planets formed in the Goldilocks zone, at distances and temperatures where liquid water could exist. On one or more of these planets, which harboured carbon, nitrogen, and liquid water, complex organic chemicals formed primitive amino acids in a process known as abiogenesis. In some particular environments, such as are found in alkaline deep sea vents, some arrangements of these organic molecules were able to replicate themselves by a sort of autocatalysis reaction. The important idea here is that the required complexity was forced by the environment, a form of top down causation. Different environments selected different organic molecule arrangements, and it turned out that some of these were able to replicate themselves. Thus was formed the first molecular memory, a very special arrow of time. Forced through endless changes in its environment, this memory enabled greater complexity to arise until, at some stage, what we regard as biological life was formed. Then the various processes of evolution continued to drive greater complexity, when finally at some point consciousness arose. Maybe it was just some lucky recursive wiring of neural networks, or maybe it was just a critical mass of them, but what consciousness allowed was the formation of intent. It probably started off in simple modifications to the environment coupled with further genetic evolution, but what ultimately occurred was the arrival of intelligence. Intelligence coupled with the ability to learn, to record and manipulate memories allowed us to gain insight into our environment, and thus began the natural sciences (physics, chemistry, biology, and geology) and mathematics. When all this knowledge was fine-tuned by scientific method over many centuries, humans gained the ability to build a radio telescope, which, in my biased opinion, is the definition of intelligence as a process."

Here I am setting the scene for how conscious 'programming occurs in sentient animals.

You state: "It is important and necessary to point out that computers/ AIs don't do logical analysis, and don't decide on outcomes. Does an earthworm or an amoeba do logical analysis? I suspect they (as sentient animals) do some primitive analysis according to their DNA program as they apply some form of If....Then... analysis making a muscle contract in response to a saline gradient or light or ...

In my current essay I noted: "In the computer science field of artificial intelligence, an intelligent agent is any device that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximise its chance of successfully achieving its goals. In order to do this an intelligent agent needs some form of map of the past. So therefore we need to include intelligent agents along with living organisms in the ability to sense the passage of time. It may well be that a class of skuld robot (a mechanical agent/entity spawned of artificial intelligence, and endowed with free will, self-awareness, metacognition, and problem solving [luckily for all us organics not yet invented, and hopefully never to be!]) will also have an innate ability to sense the passage of time and thus project their problem solving into the future. So we can see that living organisms and intelligent agents have the mechanisms to store selected maps of the "now" so that appropriate future actions can be taken, all occurring in the "now". Thus the passage of time, as we perceive it, does not exist as anything else other than an illusion that is necessary for living organisms to exist."

Regards

lockie

Hi Lorraine,

You stated:"The essential difference between living things and computers is that living things process information, but computers process symbolic representations of information."

I think the essential difference between skuld entities and computers is that computers don't think,saerehw skuld entities do. However I may be wrong on this as my computer typed 'wheras' backwards to inform me it was thinking. Truly it did this twice!

Regards

Lockie