An observer, since he distinguishes the space he occupies, is also a mark.
In the experiments above, imagine the circles to be forms and their circumferences to be the distinctions shaping the spaces of these forms.
In this conception a distinction drawn in any space is a mark distinguishing the space. Equally and conversely, any mark in a space draws a distinction.
We see now that the first distinction, the mark, and the observer are not only interchangeable, but, in the form, identical
The bits on time: we get the conclusion I was thinking of, which is interesting to me!, that there are undecidable expressions (now that we have functions that go to infinity).
One thing I'm thinking is you could just posit another space-dimension to accommodate GSB's "cross in a plane", but I'm ok with saying this is space-time instead. — Moliere
Indicative space
If So is the pervasive space of e, the value of e is its value to So. If e is the whole expression in So, So takes the value of e and
we can call So the indicative space of e.
In evaluating e we imagine ourselves in So with e and thus surrounded by the unwritten cross which is the boundary to S-1. — P.42
Let us then consider, for a moment, the world as described by the physicist. It consists of a number of fundamental particles which, if shot through their own space, appear as waves, and are thus (as in Chapter 11), of the same laminated structure as pearls or onions, and other wave forms called electromagnetic which it is convenient, by Occam's razor, to consider as travelling through space with a standard velocity. All these appear bound by certain natural laws which indicate the form of their relationship.
Now the physicist himself, who describes all this, is, in his own account, himself constructed of it. He is, in short, made of a conglomeration of the very particulars he describes, no more, no less, bound together by and obeying such general laws as he himself has managed to find and to record.
Thus we cannot escape the fact that the world we know is constructed in order (and thus in such a way as to be able) to see itself.
This is indeed amazing.
Not so much in view of what it sees, although this may appear fantastic enough, but in respect of the fact that it can see at all. But in order to do so, evidently it must first cut itself up into at least one state which sees, and at least one other state which is seen. In this severed and mutilated condition, whatever it sees is only partially itself. We may take it that the world undoubtedly is itself (i.e. is indistinct from itself), but, in any attempt to see itself as an object, it must, equally undoubtedly, act* so as to make itself distinct from, and therefore false to, itself. In this condition it will always partially elude itself. — CHAPTER 12
The world is composed of distinctions... — Moliere
The Observer is the observed. — Krishnamurti
Wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the world. — The Grateful Dead
Axioms are considered primitive assumptions beyond questions of true or falsity. The remainder of a system is then developed formally from these primitives. In contrast, Spencer-Brown’s axioms seem to be indisputable conclusions about the deepest archetypal nature of reality. They formally express the little we can say about something and nothing...
Once bitten, twice shy—mathematicians became much more concerned with abstraction and formality. They separated what they knew in their mathematical world from what scientists asserted about the physical world. Mathematics was supposed to be the science which dealt with the formal rules for manipulating meaningless signs. Spencer-Brown’s attempt to develop
Meanwhile, if the fear of falling into error introduces an element of distrust into science, which without any scruples of that sort goes to work and actually does know, it is not easy to understand why, conversely, a distrust should not be placed in this very distrust, and why we should not take care lest the fear of error is not just the initial error. As a matter of fact, this fear presupposes something, indeed a great deal, as truth, and supports its scruples and consequences on what should itself be examined beforehand to see whether it is truth. It starts with ideas of knowledge as an instrument, and as a medium; and presupposes a distinction of ourselves from this knowledge. More especially it takes for granted that the Absolute stands on one side, and that knowledge on the other side, by itself and cut off from the Absolute, is still something real; in other words, that knowledge, which, by being outside the Absolute, is certainly also outside truth, is nevertheless true — a position which, while calling itself fear of error, makes itself known rather as fear of the truth.
When [Norbert] Wiener brought the feedback idea to the foreground, not only did it become immediately recognized as a fundamental concept, but it also raised major philosophical questions as to the validity of the cause-effect doctrine.…the nature of feedback is that it gives a mechanism, which is independent of particular properties, of components, for constituting a stable unit. And from this mechanism, the appearance of stability gives a rationale to the observed purposive behavior of systems and a possibility of understanding teleology.…Since Wiener, the analysis of various types of systems has borne this same generalization: Whenever a whole is identified, its interactions turn out to be circularly interconnected, and cannot be taken as linear cause-effect relationships if one is not to lose the system’s characteristics (
I do wonder why it is that it has taken so long for the process view to take over. Is it necessarily less intuitive, or is the problem that we drill a sort of naive corpuscularism, a substance metaphysics, into kids for the first 14-18 years of their education? It certainly seems less intuitive. I sort of buy into Donald Hoffman's argument that we evolved to want to focus on concrete objects (thus excluding the "nothing"). — Count Timothy von Icarus
But the first distinction is made by the first cell, and then the first re-entry of the first distinction into itself by the first language speakers, and then...
The Observer is the observed.
— Krishnamurti
Wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the world.
— The Grateful Dead
I would not say that the world is composed of eyes, but it has eyes, and we are those eyes. — unenlightened
I found this summary fairly interesting: https://www.projectenportfolio.nl/images/1/16/Robertson-Laws_of_Form.pdf — Count Timothy von Icarus
Side note: It's interesting that Brown was working on network issues. I've seen some articles on information theoretic/categorical models of quantum mechanics that attempt to explain physics as a network. This in turn, allows us to recreate standard QM in a different language, but also explains entanglement in a more intuitive network-based model (or so the author claimed, I did not find anything intuitive about the paper lol). I do find the idea of modeling reality as networks or possibility trees interesting though. But again, it's easier to conceptualize the network as a fundamental thing, rather then that the network simply is a model of process and relation, which seems to be the true basic entity! — Count Timothy von Icarus
Here's another related piece, fairly short and understandable.
http://homepages.math.uic.edu/~kauffman/TimeParadox.pdf — unenlightened
I'm having trouble, on page 81, of understanding the third step where J2 is called. — Moliere
In effect, when a, b both indicate the unmarked state, it remembers which of
them last indicated the marked state. If a, then f= m. If b, then f=n. — p61.
This is extraordinary! A circuit made entirely of switches that has a memory! — unenlightened
Wow, if someone implemented something like that we could have computers and an internet! — wonderer1
Yeah, tempting but stupid. Computer memory is not made of switches. But kudos for bothering to read the thread at all. — unenlightened
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