Humans will forever fight over morals because adaptation is ruthless and desires are dictatorial.

The social contract is a necessary prerequisite for a peaceable society, so an effort towards moral standards is also necessary.

For me, independence = distinct things running on parallel tracks that don’t intersect. The tracks might converge and diverge at points along the way.

Regarding “from within,” knowing, i.e., cons, is insuperable. As for the question of the existence (ex) of an external (ext) world, this conversation is deeply concerned not with the question of an ext world , but with the deep interweave connecting the two. This translates to the question of the two great modes: subjective/objective.

I suspect what QM has done, in essence, is manipulate quantity, i.e., discrete measurement, towards existential ambiguity. That’s fascinating because scientific discovery of discrete particles for seeming continuities like radiation and vice versa for seeming things like elementary particles was a drive toward definitive boundaries, with opposite result of real boundary ambiguity affirmed.

Is a purely objective world out there? The answer to this question is ambiguous, and cons plays a central role in the fact of existential ambiguity instead of discrete boundaries being the picture on the scientific view screen.

Part of the difficulty of The Hard Problem is the global question whether cons is insuperable. If it is, then the “what” of experience is forever compromised by subjectivity who partially contradicts and nuances it.

You’re right. The wording is redundant. I used the modifier because I was trying to reckon with whether you think causation natural and physical. This attempt was made in the wake of your statements about formalisms.

Right now I’m going with the notion consciousness independence cannot be certified from within consciousness. It seems to me that knowledge can have no relationship with consciousness independence (CI) because knowing keeps the observer walled-in on all sides by consciousness (cons), so non-cons is forever inaccessible to cons.

This argument applies largely- but not wholly- to language, with the possibility of thinking and knowing outside of language acknowledged.

Why do you think cons-embedded language can interact with a non-cons world without perturbing it fatally?

To ask it another way, why do you think an unknown world can persist as unknown once you’ve observed it?

I’ve been wrong in claiming existence and consciousness are biconditional.

They are linked, but they remain distinct. They are not interchangeable.

At the very least, there’s the appearance that conscious beings are conditionally confined to a biconditional link to existence because their presence perturbs consciousness-devoid spacetime out of existence.

Even thinking about consciousness-devoid spacetme perturbs its ontic status as no object of consciousness remains unperturbed.

This because consciousness is uncontainable.

So the presence of consciousness makes existence of consciousness-devoid spacetime undecidable.

If it’s logically sound to think humans, being conscious, cannot experience and thereby know a world devoid of consciousness, then there’s the question whether we can certify the existence of a world devoid of consciousness.

Can we then generalize this uncertainty to conjecturing whether the presence of consciousness anywhere precludes a world devoid of consciousness anywhere?

This argument stands upon the foundation of the standard model being universal physics.

To clarify, the question is whether a consciousness-bearing natural world anywhere necessitates all other worlds be consciousness enabled.

Regarding existence and consciousness being biconditional, I’m thinking about early earth. Is it that we assume early earth was inhospitable to life and therefore we also assume a long period of earth history devoid of life?

So then the assumption is life arose from non-living earth dynamics.

This takes us to a pivot point transitioning earth from being devoid of life to being life-bearing.

Next we have scientists discovering physical evidence of life’s evolution from non-life.

If a dynamical system evolves to a level of complexity beyond measurement within its parameters, does that mean it can’t be cyclical?

In the case of dynamics with an axiomatic system logically incomplete , is causation thought to be in effect, but its info too complex for measurement ?

You do think state changes of a system are tied to complex dynamics?

You think complex dynamics include multiple causes for a specified effect?

If so, has it been observed that sometimes increasing complexity generates to much info to account for all of it within the parameters of the complex system?

If so, can we say entropy sometimes blocks us from making a determination of causality?

I’m trying to say you think causation a part of nature, but not a part of physics. I understand this to be the meaning of: the physics of

I’m wondering if conventional wisdom thinks causation a part of physics, and if it’s thought causation directly the report of empirical experience.

It’s hard to think about the world without consciousness or causation, and that’s why this thought experiment is fun.

Consciousness and existence being linked biconditionally is radical conjecture.



You don’t allow that causation is a part of the physics of nature.

What might it be a part of?

When hydrogen interacts with oxygen and water is the result, that this is a chemical reaction that is not also a case of causation as a part of the physics of chemical reaction gives me something to think about.

Might causation be mind dependent, and perhaps emergent thereof? In a world without consciousness, might there only be sequencing of events?

Does consciousness mandate causation as a part of the pattern recognition it can’t live without?

The teleology of human consciousness inserts causation into a neutral glob of things?

Okay, mind is emergent from non-mind.

Is causation an emergent phenomenon? Or Is it just part of the physics of nature?

When the wind moves a rock, and it rolls downhill, and we say the wind caused the rock to roll downhill, are we describing another part of the physics of the event, thus making causation somehow physical (and teleological), or do we assemble a continuity, a narrative, that is strictly a cognitive event?

The object can (usually) exist without a subject.

Can something be a self without consciousness?

Can something be an object without being an object to itself, which means it’s also a subject?

These questions make me wonder if there ca be discrete and real things without the consciousness of an observer.

Where do we come from? The void, which, as I’ve been guessing, might be the infinite possibilities of potential existence.

With this conjecture, the origin of things, including humans, might be an irreducible mystery in its particulars: every discrete, causally linked thing might necessarily be incomplete because that’s the nature of being from uncontainable potential existence.

Continuing in this vein, the beginning and end of existence can only be approached, never arrived at .

Interesting that you assume a world without consciousness is inanimate. I know you don’t mean a world without motion. I think you mean a world without self-willed motion.

In a world without consciousness, when the wind pushes a rock and it rolls downhill, is that causation, or is it a potential event among infinite possible events?

If we divorce consciousness from matter, does time lose its ability to parse infinite possible events into the intelligibility of distinct events causally sequenced?

With this speculation, I imagine time in the role of universal solvent. It dissolves unintelligible infinite possibilities into the world as we perceive it, and that world is real because of our presence in it.

Existence doesn’t exist without consciousness; without consciousness it is only potential existence.

This might tell us something about the “what” and its linkage to science: consciousness in its essence is measurement; it pairs with the existential solvency of time to render a realm of discrete things causally linked; this extracted from unintelligible infinite possibilities .

If morals correspond to real things and thus they are objective, then the “what” of life, that is, the facts of life (ha ha!) can generate a type of science, the science of morality. This is what the world religious try to teach.

The enemy of morals is adaptation. Adjusting to a situation for sake of survival often scuttles morals.

Proceeding from the belief morals are objectively real, the morals and behaviors of the good are what the wise person seeks to own.

This argument is hard to sell because it’s so hard to concretize what is meant by goodness,

Does causality exist in a world without consciousness?

I’m examining whether there’s an essential link between consciousness and causality. Since we can’t know a world without consciousness, might that suggest there is no existence without consciousness?

Perhaps the two are always paired. That would mean matter is always consciousness-bearing, and consciousness is always matter- bearing. The relationship is a biconditional.

“What it’s like to be a bat.”

What it’s like to be something is the great question that links consciousness with matter.

As we answer the question “What is matter?” do we discover that our deeper questions on the subject require that we answer the question what is consciousness, thereby suggesting all material road maps lead to consciousness?

Can there be an existence not known to be existence?

Does causality persist in a world without consciousness? If consciousness must filter reality to a small sample of what’s there, then an unfiltered reality might have an unparsed version of relativity that features unlimited temporal differentials super-animated beyond cause and effect into simultaneous everything. That might play as a beyond-sequencing explosion of uncontainable potential. An unspeakable fullness of possibilities.

We can’t answer this question, but it lends a hand with answering the question: Why is there not nothing?

It’s because you ask the question.

You can’t ask “Why existence?” if existence isn’t known.

Perhaps the greatest dialog between the “What” and the “How” is the “What” of the “How” and the “How” of the “What”?

The first question in our jingling duet is What is the good life? The second question is “What is the status of narrative?

There’s experience, but what experience is worthy, and how do you make it your own?

Is narrative merely descriptive, or is it also generative?

The two great modes have an important difference WRT focal range: “understanding “ has a well-defined focal range coupled with a well-defined goal, where as experience, potentially drawing from all of existence, has a focal range and pallet of goals unspecifiable.

Experience always holds the potential to explode understanding. The two modes, being in creative conflict, animate each other. New experience drives understanding forward and new understanding drives new experience forward.

Thank you for the detailed exam of my post.

“Why” is basic to both modes, and this conversation is about their differences, so I haven’t dwelt on it.

The two general meanings of the two great modes are “understanding” and “experience.”

There is much overlap between the two, so how do they differ?

Everyone sees the difference between one rock and two rocks. Do the solo rock and the rock duet, respectively, physically store number within themselves?

Regarding reversible dynamics becoming irreversible phenomena, is there an inflection point linking a containable volume of physical information with an uncontainable volume of physical information?

Might that inflection point be described by the Beckenstein bound?

You’re focused on the great conjunctive adverb: why?

Where does human fit into the universe? Why are we here? I think a big clue to answering that question is consciousness. Are we alone? Is our presence the universe arrived at a new plateau: the universe looking at itself?

The present state of my general descriptions of the two great modes: science/humanities goes as follows: science asks: what is existence? Humanities asks: how is human?

For science the focal point is on measurement. For humanities the focal point is on consciousness.

When you measure something you contain it. Containment of existing things drives toward understanding.

When you experience something you assemble a continuity of knowing-what-it’s-like into a narrative of an enduring point of view, your personal history.

Every human individual is both scientist and artist. The human individual needs both the understanding of measurement and the knowing-what-it’s-like of a personal history in order to live. No understanding? No personal history? No life.

The scientist measures, i.e., she sounds the dimensions of a thing, thereby revealing the what of a mysterious thing that mystifies her own knowledge of the what of her being until she finally surrenders her understanding to a radically new picture of the what of the state of being of herself.

The artist assembles a continuity of knowing-what-it’s-like into an arc of change and discovery that is a personal history through the start of adventures, the middle section assessing battles won/lost and finally reaching the summit/plateau of a new state of the how of her being.


Logic and math cover the two great modes thus: scientifically they mark and track the what of the position of the state of being; artistically they narrate a continuity of the direction of the how of being towards a conclusion of the what-it’s-like to reside in validity-as-truth, or not.

In each mode, one of the greatest mysteries is the location of the inflection point linking the immaterial and the material. This linkage and its circumambient mystery establish the wholely picture of life: substance grounding immanent form endlessly variable, albeit grounded within the ambiguity that animates the what and the how.

In your post to hypericin, you say math structures are an instance of info strings. By Webster’s, that means math structures are a concrete representation of info strings, as a freedom fighter is a concrete representation of freedom. I expect you to deny Webster’s definition is your intended meaning, unless you’re drawing from Aristotle’s hylomorphism in the following way: an info string is a substantial with potential, and a math structure is an actual form immanent in the substantial potential.

What do you have to say?

I’m not trying to make a point indirectly with rhetorical questions. The questions are sincere, and I want
you to answer sincerely.

At this time, I’m not trying to contest your assertions. You see I’m in error re: map/terrain.

Maybe you can pick one question — the one whose answer you deem most helpful — and answer it.

You indicate numbers are immaterial.

What are numbers abstracted from? Is an abstraction a derivative of its antecedent? Does a number have any type of connection to matter? Can a number have an application to matter and yet have no connection to matter? Can abstract numbers measure material things without establishing any type of connection to the material thing measured?

When we use numbers, do we make some type of contact_connection with the numbers? Is there a sense of “use” that involves no type of contact _connection?

Does a map have some type of relationship _connection with/to terrain?

Map in the sense of formalism is distinct from map in the sense of a graphic showing a Cartesian coordinate grid of intersecting streets?

I have revised my understanding of a formalism. If I can use the form of an equation as a formalism, then I can say $a+b=c$ is an example of a formalism.

What is its relationship to the concrete numbers that plug into its variables?

There is a difference in degree between refer to and specify.

Refer to can connect one thing to another generally.

Specify connects one thing to another with a concrete exactness (precision).

A formalism can refer generally to its powerset. $a+b=c$ in reference to only itself is useless. We only know how to use an equation when we know its powerset, which tells us the range of specific (precise) numbers (referred to generally by the formalism of the abstract equation) that can plug into the abstract form of the equation.

An abstract equation might be a set; it might be the set of all possible numbers that can plug into it meaningfully.

Formalisms measure regularities of nature. — ucarr

No they don't. As I wrote: formalisms ARE USED to measure or describe the regularities of nature (e.g. arithmetic IS USED to count apples in a barrel). — 180 Proof

If formalisms refer generally to their powerset of possible concrete numbers that can plug into the abstract form of the formalism, then they do measure the regularities of nature, which is to say they are generally and existentially involved in concrete measurements of regularities of nature because they constrain the range of concrete numbers that can do the measuring.

Abstractionism does not break the chain of causality connecting, existentially, formalisms to regularities of nature.

Formalisms (axiomatic or otherwise) are abstract and therefore do not refer beyond themselves to concrete matters of fact (e.g. entropy), rather they are used as syntax for methods of precisely measuring / describing the regularities of nature. — 180 Proof

Formalisms measure regularities of nature. — ucarr

This is how I read your statement.

No they don't. As I wrote: formalisms ARE USED to measure or describe the regularities of nature (e.g. arithmetic IS USED to count apples in a barrel). — 180 Proof

This is your argument supporting your claim I mis-read your claim.

You seem to be implying that guidelines for best arrangement of signs (syntax) for the sake of effective communication are exclusively generalizations.

You propound your implied characterization by pointing out how your statement presents the critical verb "measurement" in the passive voice, whereas my statement presents it in the active voice. This emphasis on the passive voice is your effort at distancing formalisms from regularities of nature_matters of concrete fact.

Obviously, by definition of formalism, there is a chain-link of narration linking the meaning of formalisms (axiomatic or otherwise) with how they're applied directly by their agents to things in nature. The degree of elaboration of the components of the narration (and the narrative "distance" accreted) never breaks the chain-link of narration connecting the formalisms to their objects.

sine qua non | ˌsinā ˌkwä ˈnōn, ˌsinē ˌkwä ˈnän |
noun
an essential condition; a thing that is absolutely necessary: grammar and usage are the sine qua non of language teaching and learning.
ORIGIN
Latin, literally ‘(cause) without which not’.
The Apple Dictionary

In my understanding, axiomatic system = sine qua non. If something is essential to a following thing that is the consequence of the first thing, then the first thing refers beyond itself specifically to the following thing.

There appears to be an idea floating through the zeitgeist of the scientific age that generalizations, i.e., abstractions, run parallel to the concrete and specific creations of nature. In my understanding, a generalization is a thinking process that utilizes cognitive compression of multiple applications of the generalization. This cognitive process produces the axiomatic system.

Although the cognitively compressed idea, while occupying its compressed state as an abstraction, seems not to be directly tied to any one of the many objects of its meaning, this in fact is a falsehood.

Claiming formalisms do not refer beyond themselves parallels claiming the distinction between a verb in the active voice and a verb in the passive voice has no connection to the grammar specifying a distinction between the two voices.

Formalisms measure regularities of nature. — ucarr

No they don't. As I wrote: formalisms ARE USED to measure or describe the regularities of nature (e.g. arithmetic IS USED to count apples in a barrel). — 180 Proof

.

Your above quote makes it clear beyond doubt you're using the distinction of the passive voice of the verb from the active voice of the verb to defend your denial of the following:

Formalisms measure regularities of nature. You say (above) regularities of nature are concrete matters of fact. Since formalisms measure regularities of nature, and regularities of nature are concrete matters of fact, formalisms measure concrete matters of fact. — ucarr

So, our debate over formalisms referring to things beyond themselves comes into focus here as a specific argument point you make in which you do the very thing you deny the possibility of doing: basing your defensive argument upon a grammatical formalism: English verbs have both an active and a passive voice, such that, per your argument, the grammatical formalism about the voice distinction, when it refers to that distinction in application, defends against :

Since formalisms measure regularities of nature, and regularities of nature are concrete matters of fact, formalisms measure concrete matters of fact. — ucarr

The premise behind your defensive argument is the following: formalisms (English verbs have both passive and active voice) do refer to concrete matters of fact, with the purported supporting fact in this instance being: "Because I wrote my claim with the verb in the passive voice, my claim 'formalisms do not refer beyond themselves to concrete matters' stands."

As you assume (in contradiction to what you say), formalisms do refer to things beyond themselves. So, by your own assumption (and debate maneuver), your claim to the contrary is false.

Facts describe real things. As you describe formalisms:

...they are used as syntax for methods of precisely measuring / describing the regularities of nature. — 180 Proof

The regularities of nature are concrete matters of fact — 180 Proof

Formalisms measure regularities of nature. You say (above) regularities of nature are concrete matters of fact. Since formalisms measure regularities of nature, and regularities of nature are concrete matters of fact, formalisms measure concrete matters of fact.

Thus,

Formalisms (axiomatic or otherwise) are abstract and therefore do not refer beyond themselves to concrete matters of fact (e.g. entropy)... — 180 Proof

falsely denies that formalisms refer beyond themselves to concrete matters of fact (e.g. entropy).

...you also say formalisms do = regularities of nature — ucarr

False. Stop shadowboxing with your strawmen, you're further confusing yourself. — 180 Proof

Here's your own language:

Formalisms (axiomatic or otherwise) are... used as syntax for methods of precisely measuring / describing the regularities of nature. — 180 Proof

Formalisms (axiomatic or otherwise) are abstract and therefore do not refer beyond themselves to concrete matters of fact (e.g. entropy)... — 180 Proof

rather they are used as syntax for methods of precisely measuring / describing the regularities of nature. — 180 Proof

Why are these two statements not a contradiction? — ucarr

Map-making does not "contradict" using a map for navigating terrain.. — 180 Proof

Premise - Formalism = (a technical term for) narrative

Question - When you write a map, do you simultaneously read it? If so, then reading and writing are merged as an identity. Also, they are symmetrical, which is to say, if writing and reading are merged, then reading and writing are merged (when you read something, it doesn't enter your understanding directly; you read what's written, and then your comprehension of what you've read writes what is written onto the plane of your memory).

Symmetry cannot be contradictory, but if the distinction between writing a map and reading a map is erased by symmetry, then there is contradiction, thus pointing up the illogic of your two sentences taken together.

Why are "regularities of nature" not concrete matters of fact? — ucarr

The regularities of nature are concrete matters of fact from which physical laws are generalized (i.e. abstracted) physical. I haven't claimed or implied otherwise — 180 Proof

Above you say formalisms $≠$ concrete matters of fact; above you also say formalisms $=$ regularities of nature. Next you say matters of fact and regularities of nature $=$ each other. How is it your statements about formalism are not contradictory?

Formalisms (axiomatic or otherwise) are abstract and therefore do not refer beyond themselves to concrete matters of fact...rather they are used as syntax for methods of precisely measuring / describing the regularities of nature. — 180 Proof

Why is it the case that formalisms, when they measure_describe the regularities of nature, do not refer beyond themselves to concrete matters of fact_the regularities of nature?

How are "matters of fact" concrete but not empirical? — ucarr

Where are you getting this? This question has nothing to do with what I've argued. — 180 Proof

empirical | imˈpirək(ə)l |
adjective
based on, concerned with, or verifiable by observation or experience rather than theory or pure logic: they provided considerable empirical evidence to support their argument.
The Apple Dictionary

The empirical includes matters of fact verifiable by observation. Since logic doesn't do any observing, instead it being done by humans not theorizing abstractly but observing real things, logic, through humans, connects with the world of empirical experience, and thus my question is pertinent to your statement.

If self-descriptions ("formalisms...do not refer beyond themselves") have nothing to do with the world (nature), instead being interested only in themselves only self-referential, how are they meaningful and useful? — ucarr

Are the disciplines of epistemology and ontology merely products of human translations? — ucarr

Idk what you mean by "translations" — 180 Proof

...that physical laws are computable does not entail that the physical universe is a computer. — 180 Proof

By your own words, we see that scientific measurement (at least sometimes) is a translation from the empirical to the cognitive.

Uncertainty is a precision problem.

More precision means more information.

According to Chaitin's incompleteness, sufficiently higher precision will indeed at some point exceed the amount of information that the system can decompress.

According to the literature on the subject, both incompleteness and imprecision ("uncertainty") can be explained by the principle of lossy compression that results in a particular maximum amount of information that could ever be decompressed out of the system. — Tarskian

Does a lossy axiomatic system also necessarily omit consequential facts because of measurement limitations described by Heisenberg Uncertainty? — ucarr

Yes. Technically, the resulting imprecision is the due to the fundamental properties of wave functions.

However, the paper mentioned , Calude & Stay, 2004, "From Heisenberg to Gödel via Chaitin.", connects uncertainty to Chaitin's incompleteness:

In fact, the formal uncertainty principle applies to all systems governed by the wave equation, not just quantum waves. This fact supports the conjecture that uncertainty implies algorithmic randomness not only in mathematics, but also in physics.

They conclude that it is not possible to decompress more precise information out of an axiomatic system than the maximum precision imposed by the fundamental properties of wave functions. — Tarskian

precision | prēˈsiZH(ə)n |
noun
technical refinement in a measurement, calculation, or specification, especially as represented by the number of digits given: a precision of six decimal figures
The Apple Dictionary

When we look at the triad of entropy_uncertainty_incompleteness through the lens of imprecision, which is about exactness, we see that the informational dimension of nature is not fully containable within human observation, whether of the scientific type, or of the humanities type.

Does this tell us something about the incompleteness of nature, or does it tell us something about the incompleteness of human cognition?

Given the limits of measurement and decompression, does 180 Proof have a cogent point?

...that physical laws are computable does not entail that the physical universe is a computer. — 180 Proof

180 Proof

Does this argument cast doubt on whether we can know reality beyond its human translation?

Are the disciplines of epistemology and ontology merely products of human translations?

Is Platonic Realism correct: humans dwell within a (cognitive) dark cave, sealed off from direct and complete experience of reality? Plato, however, thought he saw a way out of shadowy perception by means of reasoning beyond appearances.

Can we hope to eventually reason beyond the current state-of-the-art observations limited by imprecision of measurement and incompleteness of decompression? Or is it the case the limited measurements of the wave function and the limited decompression of axiomatic systems reflect existential limitations embedded in nature?

Now perhaps we come to a crux of the faceoff between the sciences and the humanities. If the observer is always entangled with the observed, does that mean the two great modalities of discovery: the what and the what it’s like of the what are linked by the biconditional operator?

The biconditional linking sciences and humanities writ large is the biconditional linking nature and sentience.

Option 1 – If humans can see nature beyond measurement and decompression limitations, then sentience is inevitable because its seeds are embedded existentially.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Option 2 – If sentience and nature are creatively and strategically incomplete, without biconditional linkage, then existential limitations of knowing and being are always in effect. There’s a gap separating the two, however, the knowing of being, and the being of knowing of being, make a close approach to each other. This close approach, always incomplete, keeps the game of sentience going creatively because the two infinities, although incommensurable, are entangled in an evolving, inexhaustible complexity.

Formalisms (axiomatic or otherwise) are abstract and therefore do not refer beyond themselves to concrete matters of fact (e.g. entropy)... — 180 Proof

...rather they are...measuring / describing the regularities of nature. — 180 Proof

Why are these two statements not a contradiction?

Why are "regularities of nature" not concrete matters of fact?

How are "matters of fact" concrete but not empirical?

If self-descriptions ("formalisms...do not refer beyond themselves") have nothing to do with the world (nature), instead being interested only in themselves, how are they meaningful and useful?

Does a lossy axiomatic system also necessarily omit consequential facts because of measurement limitations described by Heisenberg Uncertainty? — ucarr

Yes. Technically, the resulting imprecision is the due to the fundamental properties of wave functions. — Tarskian

Do you have any interest in the Beckenstein bound, from the Holographic Principle (Gerard t'Hooft)? It describes a limit to the amount of information that can be stored within an area of spacetime at the Planck scale. Among other things, this limit establishes the physical nature of information. There's an algorithm for measuring the Beckenstein bound: it's a fraction of the area of the event horizon of a black hole.

:up:

... for any system that does work, as it goes forward in the systematic process of doing work, the work builds up complexity of detail. This building up of complexity can be observed in two modes: phenomenal (entropy) and epistemic (logic). — ucarr

...logic is not "doing work" — 180 Proof

What is symbolic logic without the reader? It's marks on paper. No work. Really, it's non-existent without the writer. Logic that has meaning and works always assumes the interaction between a human and the marks on the paper: Aristotle's intelligent agent meets intelligibility. Work.

This leads to the conclusion that axiomatic systems are a form of compression of complexity and that the increase of complexity is an irreversible process.

More nonsense. Formalisms (axiomatic or otherwise) are abstract and therefore do not refer beyond themselves to concrete matters of fact (e.g. entropy), rather they are used as syntax for methods of precisely measuring / describing the regularities of nature. — 180 Proof

"Formalisms that do not refer beyond themselves to concrete matters of fact (e.g. entropy)..." no work.

However, as above: Formalisms that have meaning and work always assume the interaction between a human and the marks on the paper: Aristotle's intelligent agent meets intelligibility. Work.

Formalisms are not abstract because, in their description of nature, they express the state of being (in this case: thinking) of human individuals who are, indeed, a part of nature, and therefore, human expression is nature expressing herself. There is no discrete bifurcation separating "abstract" human thought from nature.

"... rather they are used as syntax for methods of precisely measuring / describing the regularities of nature."

Why bother with measurement and description if there's no existential connection between abstract thought and nature? If formalisms are hermetically sealed off from nature, then, willy-nilly you can assign whatever meaning you like to whatever marks on paper you make, for all the value that has.

Both life and science are interesting. This because, within the realm of human thinking -- just another natural thing -- it's possible to be either right or wrong. Right and wrong draw their force and value from the interweave of nature as thinking and nature as object of thinking, i.e., nature looking at herself.

The test of syntax comes down to: can you speak the words trippingly from the tongue? The test of science comes down to: can you observe the predictions in nature? These tests bespeak the interweave between natural thinking and nature thinking about herself.

We will show that algorithmic randomness is equivalent to a “formal uncertainty principle” which implies Chaitin’s information-theoretic incompleteness. We also show that the derived uncertainty relation, for many computers, is physical. In fact, the formal uncertainty principle applies to all systems governed by the wave equation, not just quantum waves. This fact supports the conjecture that uncertainty implies algorithmic randomness not only in mathematics, but also in physics. — Tarskian quoting Calude and Stay

Calude & Stay, 2004, "From Heisenberg to Gödel via Chaitin."

The above quoted theories are interesting because they could either be right or wrong. There's something at stake. That wouldn't be the cause if human thinking weren't existentially connected to the natural world surrounding it.

Was this correct:

I am starting to believe that what you are really getting at behind the curtains here is that science and art share common features. — I like sushi

Followed by the possibility of uniting/transcending the differences held by many? — I like sushi

I simple yes/no or suffice. If it is a bit more than this then a sketchy - yet straight forward - outline would be all I need. — I like sushi

We don't live within a universe; instead, we live within a vital approach to a universe strategically forestalled by entropy_uncertainty_incompleteness. Science and Humanities are the two great modes of experiencing the uncontainable vitality. — ucarr

This is how I talk about science and humanities in broad generality. The link below will take you to the post for additional context.

ucarr post

That they overlap in ways complex and nuanced I acknowledge. Their common ground has not been my focus in this conversation. What I haven't seen (I'm not implying such literature doesn't exist) is a general description of how they differ. Through both lenses: similarity and difference, the view of the comparison is complex and nuanced.

I feel a measure of satisfaction with my "What" Vs "How" binary. Again, this binary entails a complex and nuanced interweave of both "What" and "How." A loose translation into English might be: What is meets What it's like to experience what is.

This language points toward The Hard Problem. Looking objectively at subjectivity is hard to do. Is consciousness purely subjective? "Not exactly," says science when it attempts to detach the observer from the observed. QM tells us there is no purity of observational detachment.

QM entanglement tells us something about consciousness: it interweaves the objective and subjective. Does this dovetail with the holism you see?

In each problem, ultimate pattern arises from the particular information preserved in the face of the combined fluctuations in aggregates that decay all non-preserved aspects of pattern toward maximum entropy or maximum randomness — Tarskian

Axiomatic theories do something similar. — Tarskian

The few rules in the axiomatic theory will not succeed in decompressing themselves back into the full reality. What facts from the full reality that they fail to incorporate does not say particularly much about these facts (deemed "chance", "random", ...). They rather say something about the compression technique being used, which is the principle that chooses what facts will be deemed predictable and what facts will be deemed mere "chance". — Tarskian

As I understand it, an axiomatic system is a compressor. The algorithm that generates the axiomatic system has a focal point that excludes info inconsequential to the outcome the axiomatic system tries to predict.

Does a lossy axiomatic system also necessarily omit consequential facts because of measurement limitations described by Heisenberg Uncertainty?