I have no problem with the equivalence of matter and information. However I see no advantage in this assumption. What is the practical consequence? . . . To define the term "information" I suggest to with "Information" contained in propositions. . . .
As far as I understand your thoughts move in an area between questions of quantum mechanics and neuro physiology, between structuralism and neo positivism. Even in a more modest area a clarification of the terms would be necessary. — Mersi

Claude Shannon narrowed his definition of "Information" down to one specific "practical consequence" : either a communication of Information conveys (certain) meaning from sender to receiver, or not (uncertain). But that is just one of many ways to define the term. Pop has developed a more philosophical way to approach the problem of understanding what Information is, in more general terms : "Information is the evolutionary interaction of form, or Information = evolutionary interaction, explains the role of information in our lives." Unfortunately, that definition may be a bit too broad for those who don't grasp the Idealized meaning of "interaction of form". Many posters on this forum don't give credence to Plato's notion of abstract eternal Forms, as the essence of concrete space-time Things.

So, the problem with a comprehensive definition of "Information" is that it is all-of-the-above, and more. I call it a ShapeShifter, because Information takes different forms, depending on the context. In a computer, it can be reduced down to abstract mathematical symbols : 1 or 0, all or nothing. On the other hand, you mentioned that you have "no problem with the equivalence of matter and information". But what does that abstract equation imply about the real world? In what sense are Matter and Information the same thing? To clarify that claim of multiple identities, I would add a third entity : The Matter, Energy, Information Equivalence. The original referent, of the verb "to inform", was to the invisible & intangible contents of a human mind (meaning). But Shannon gave it a mathematical & physical interpretation similar to the quantum collapse of an abstract & random waveform into a specific concrete particle of matter. However, by comparing the uncertainty of randomness to Entropy, he brought-in a connection to abstract causal Energy, which we infer from its effects on Matter.

Therefore, a complete definition of "Information" must cover all of those technical & scientific concepts, along with the philosophical notions of "aboutness" & "meaning" & "cybernetics". In its causal energetic form, I spell it : EnFormAction (the power to cause change in form). Only when you understand the ubiquity of Information in the real and ideal worlds, will you be able to see the manifold practical and philosophical "consequences" of Information, as Spinoza's "universal substance" of the world. :nerd:


The mass-energy-information equivalence principle :
Here we formulate a new principle of mass-energy-information equivalence proposing that a bit of information is not just physical, as already demonstrated, but it has a finite and quantifiable mass while it stores information.
https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/1.5123794

Matter, Energy, Information :
Unpublished until now, this essay was written in 1969. It takes up the ancient concept of form, in order to interpret the contemporary concept of information and to develop a unified concept encompassing both biology, as understood cybernetically, and physics, as the theory of decidable alternatives
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-03668-7_11

Information :
* Claude Shannon quantified Information not as useful ideas, but as a mathematical ratio between meaningful order (1) and meaningless disorder (0) ; between knowledge (1) and ignorance (0). So, that meaningful mind-stuff exists in the limbo-land of statistics, producing effects on reality while having no sensory physical properties. We know it exists ideally, only by detecting its effects in the real world.
* For humans, Information has the semantic quality of aboutness , that we interpret as meaning. In computer science though, Information is treated as meaningless, which makes its mathematical value more certain. It becomes meaningful only when a sentient Self interprets it as such.
* When spelled with an “I”, Information is a noun, referring to data & things. When spelled with an “E”, Enformation is a verb, referring to energy and processes.
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page11.html

Information :
Knowledge and the ability to know. Technically, it's the ratio of order to disorder, of positive to negative, of knowledge to ignorance. It's measured in degrees of uncertainty. Those ratios are also called "differences". So Gregory Bateson* defined Information as "the difference that makes a difference". The latter distinction refers to "value" or "meaning". Babbage called his prototype computer a "difference engine". Difference is the cause or agent of Change. In Physics it’s called "Thermodynamics" or "Energy". In Sociology it’s called "Conflict".
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page11.html

People who don't believe in God or any higher power like to say that the Big Bang was the start of the universe and everything. Well even if that is the case, that still leaves the question of why there was a Big Bang in the first place. — HardWorker

This formerly Hot thread seems to have cooled-off. And the topical question, which implies a rational (intentional?) First Cause, seems to have elicited one succinct cynical answer : "there is no why" (i.e. no reason), and a variety of philosophical curiosity postulations : "the reason-for-being for whom?". The succinct answer is plausible, only if nothing existed prior to the Big Bang, hence no reason-for-being, apart from Serendipity. But even atheist scientists are aware of the poverty of the "no why" retort. Which is why so many irrational or unintentional Causes, or just-so Prior Conditions, have been proposed by those who seek only data, not reasons : Quantum Fluctuation, Many Worlds, Multiverse, Hyper-Inflation, etc. So, we are faced with A> the simple Brute Fact of the world's Self-Existence, or B> the rational inference of a specific Cause to explain the observed universal Effect.

Alternative "A" implies the eternal existence of an evolving (but cyclic) material universe, while "B" assumes a non-cyclic world, with a specific point of beginning. Which implies the eternal or timeless existence of a creative agency of some kind. However, both "explanations" are speculative, not observed facts. Yet, the existence of Reasoning ability (homo sapiens ; observers) in the Effect, implies the potential for Reasoning in the Cause. So, to ask about a "Reason for Being" is a legitimate philosophical question, even though it's not a question subject to an empirical answer. Therefore, those who ask such questions are motivated, not by Pragmatic concerns, but by philosophical curiosity. Presumably, animals (and cynics) don't feel the need to know such hypothetical (impractical) information. But recorded history shows that "why" questions are innate to the human condition. Only the incurious, or fatalistic, are afraid to ask the Big Why questions. :cool:


Serendipity : the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way..

Cynical : bitterly or sneeringly distrustful, contemptuous, or pessimistic.

but then things are going OK for me, for now. — Zugzwang

So, why worry about the infinite array of possible futures, what could be, when what is "now" is at least OK. Worrying does not not change the future. Only actions, both positive & negative, can change what-might-be into what-is. Don't worry, be happy. :grin:

Stoicism : an ancient Greek school of philosophy founded at Athens by Zeno of Citium. The school taught that virtue, the highest good, is based on knowledge; the wise live in harmony with the divine Reason (also identified with Fate and Providence) that governs nature, and are indifferent to the vicissitudes of fortune and to pleasure and pain.

Sounds as if you speak from a tower of saddened ivory. What's wrong with viewing the mind as settled in the brain? The brain is made from matter. — DanLager

My tower of mental facts, not material ivory, is built upon the foundation of ubiquitous Information. So, it's true that the Mind is a product of a material Brain. But that Brain consists of immaterial Information. Are you aware of the Matter-Energy-Information Equivalence Principle? Matter is indeed physical, but Energy is only a mental inference from the effects of Causation on Matter. And Information is the Aristotelian "Substance" of both. Hence, the Brain is made from intangible Information. :nerd:

Information :
* Claude Shannon quantified Information not as useful ideas, but as a mathematical ratio between meaningful order (1) and meaningless disorder (0); between knowledge (1) and ignorance (0). So, that meaningful mind-stuff exists in the limbo-land of statistics, producing effects on reality while having no sensory physical properties. We know it exists ideally, only by detecting its effects in the real world.
* For humans, Information has the semantic quality of aboutness , that we interpret as meaning. In computer science though, Information is treated as meaningless, which makes its mathematical value more certain. It becomes meaningful only when a sentient Self interprets it as such.
* When spelled with an “I”, Information is a noun, referring to data & things. When spelled with an “E”, Enformation is a verb, referring to energy and processes.
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page11.html

Gallows humor. — Zugzwang

I just heard a bit of "gallows humor" in YouTube's The Expanse. Miller, the battle-scarred detective on space station Eros, was surrounded by men with guns. So the situation was not looking good for his survival. When encouraged by his partner to hang-in there, he quipped "optimism is for *ssholes and earthers ". Not exactly a Seinfeld quote, who when asked "what's your script about?", replied "nothing". Nevertheless, the dour detective persevered, and lived to quip another hopeless day. :joke:

AFAIK, there's nothing stopping an asteroid from wiping us out. How do believers in a cosmic logic, with humans at the center of it, deal with this possibly? Square it with the Thesis? — Zugzwang

I don't personally know many "believers in cosmic logic", but I'm currently reading the book by Astronomer Physicist John D. Barrow, The Anthropic Cosmological Principle. He's no Pollyanna, but he looks on the bright side of the cosmic coin. He lists several cosmologists, since the 18th century, who "believed in an evolving, melioristic universe". The book's Introduction, by famous physicist John Archibald Wheeler, makes an assertion that "squares" with my thesis : "our own time has made enormous headway in sniffing out the sophisticated relations between entropy, information, randomness, and computability". [my emphasis]

Wheeler also says, "The philosopher of old was right! Meaning is important, is even central. It is not only that man is adapted to the universe. The universe is adapted to man. . . . That is the central point of the anthropic principle". Based on his positive assessment of the "Cosmic Logic", he postulated the concept of a Participatory Universe, in which humans are not helpless victims of fickle Fate, but collectively affect the course of evolution via feedback from its participants. So, you can, like those serious physicists, choose to interpret the evidence in a positive light, or negative. Of all the products of Evolution, only humans have any semblance of FreeWill, of Free Choice, to emphasize the positive, or the negative aspects of Reality. :nerd:


Meliorism :
1. The belief that the human condition can be improved through concerted effort.
2. The belief that there is an inherent tendency toward progress or improvement in the human condition.

The Participatory Universe :
Wheeler's hunch is that the universe is built like an enormous feedback loop, a loop in which we contribute to the ongoing creation of not just the present and the future but the past as well.
http://www.spacemachine.net/views/2014/11/participatory-universe

Yet, most animals seem to be unbothered by questions about Life's Meaning, or the inevitability of Life's End. T — Gnomon
They don't have to bother. They just live. — Pristina

Yes. But humans do "have to bother". It's in our nature to compare what-is with what-could-be. And to strive to better a bad situation. Would you change places with a blithe Panda bear, contentedly chewing on bamboo, unbothered by the immanent extinction of its species? :cool:

Let's throw in working to improve that reality while simultaneously adapting one's attitude and I'm with you. Also include an escape clause : some situations are so dire that a self-induced painless exit is reasonable. — Zugzwang

I agree, that some oppressed people in the world, have compelling reasons to consider suicide as "an escape clause". Yet, ironically, most of those suffering souls do not make that drastic choice. So there seems to be an innate "will to live" despite all incentives to give-up. That perseverance in the face of despair, may be one source of dogged optimism. But my positive outlook is more of an intellectually-developed philosophical worldview, as summarized in the BothAnd Principle.. :smile:

The BothAnd Principle :
. . . .The Enformationism worldview entails the principles of Complementarity, Reciprocity & Holism, which are necessary to offset the negative effects of Fragmentation, Isolation & Reductionism. Analysis into parts is necessary for knowledge of the mechanics of the world, but synthesis of those parts into a whole system is required for the wisdom to integrate the self into the larger system. In a philosophical sense, all opposites in this world (e.g. space/time, good/evil) are ultimately reconciled in Enfernity (eternity & infinity). . . .
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page10.html

Now you add another layer as you present your optimism as a choice. Sartre's a dark philosopher, after all, speaking of human being as an impossible quest to become god (something like that, he's not easy to parse). — Zugzwang

What other choice do we have, besides depression and suicide, when faced with our lack of omniscience or omnipotence? As a Christian, I used to think of Existentialism, and its Existential Despair, as a "dark" and Pessimistic attitude. But now, as a post-Christian, I view the choice to take responsibility for our own choices, as a Pragmatic attitude. Even though we may not have a heavenly father to look-out for us, homo sapiens still have the innate qualities required of Moral Agents : self-awareness, etc. :smile:

I don't share that sense of cosmic progress, — Zugzwang

The natural progression of this exploding cosmos is not evident, unless we include the gradually-evolving cultural progress of the human element. FWIW, the links below provide some of the evidence that allows me to have "a more optimistic outlook". :grin:

Cosmic Progression :
Unexpectedly, organic Life appeared in the middle of the "life span" of the Cosmos, . . .
http://bothandblog3.enformationism.info/page28.html

Moral Progress :
Steven Pinker, probably motivated in part by this pessimistic trend in academic & religious circles, has contributed a plethora of reasonable & plausible evidence for a more optimistic outlook.
http://www.bothandblog.enformationism.info/page71.html

Reading ‘the myth of the fall’ symbolically - what it symbolises is the beginning of self-consciousness, the emergence of the sense of ownership, of the awareness of loss, of self-aware being. That is why the tree from which the apple was taken is the ‘tree of the knowledge of good and evil’. Animals have no such knowledge - they simply dwell in the present, eating and being eaten, fleeing from terror and seeking sustenance. — Wayfarer

Yes. The key insight of :The Fall" myth is that humans are both blessed and cursed by their "knowledge of good & evil". Which makes us moral agents, who are forced to make hard choices, but without the omniscience to know the consequences of those choices. Some Misanthropes on this forum seem to be willing to trade places with the "lower" animals, who are merely faced with choices of Life or Death, instead of Good or Evil. Human self-consciousness includes awareness of our Existential plight. Yet, most animals seem to be unbothered by questions about Life's Meaning, or the inevitability of Life's End. That human tendency to philosophical ennui, may be why Feynman advised his fellow physicists to "shut-up [about metaphysical questions] and calculate". :cool:

A more perfect world: look where this ability to imagine a more perfect world brought the world: to an increasingly barren and aridly acid world on which a major part of the once flourishing "lower" creatures have no place anymore these days. A huge part of the biodiversity has simply been destroyed in modern man's attempt (and it are mostly men) to recreate the world. — SoftEdgedWonder

Does that dismal view of the current state of the world, mean that you'd prefer to go back to the totally natural -- no synthetic furs -- Caveman times, where biodiversity meant that your only problem was to avoid getting snapped-up by a T-rex, or stepped-on by a Woolly Mammoth, and watch-out for talking snakes? That must have been a perfect Garden of Eden.

Unfortunately, as the Bible says, that Idyllic child-like existence was destroyed by the human arrogance to rely on Human Reason, instead of divine Revelation, to learn how to create a Cultural Utopia. Is your solution to this "increasingly barren and aridly acid world" to turn back to God's Providence? It was Reasoning that got us into this mess. But some of us still arrogantly rely on that imperfect talent for imagining something better than what-is : what could be. Perhaps a race of robots *, sans ego, will do a better job of creating a perfect world, as in The Matrix. :joke:

I'm kidding, of course. I know where you're coming from. But I prefer Optimism to Fatalism, as an onward & upward, rather than backward, worldview. :smile:

* synthetic metacognitive agent : as envisioned by

↪Gnomon
Actually, what brought on :cry: was my :rofl: at your :monkey: response to ↪apokrisis
. It wasn't "pollyanny" but funny-bone hilarity only a spent philosophical discussion could hit. :nerd: — 180 Proof

I assumed as much. The reply was intended to be Ironic. You have made your dismal view of Reality, "boiling, toxic, mudball", clear from the beginning. Ironically, my moderated optimism allows me to take your derogation in stride, and even to find it somewhat amusing, as a sign of the depths that "a spent philosophical discussion could hit". :grin: :joke: :cool:

Dismal : depressing; dreary.

But I’d beware of dismissing ‘religious salvation’ in such casual terms ('harp-strumming afterlife'). It's like saying, science be damned because of eugenics, or something. — Wayfarer

I apologize, if that comment sounded dismissive or damning. But it was just intended to convey that my personal worldview does not envision any kind of "salvation". Instead, I assume that the evolution of the world, including all of the pain & suffering, is working-out just as intended. By that I mean, the Hegelian dialectic is inherent in the program of Evolution.

Even in my native Christianity, the notion of salvation seems to imply, either that God created a world where evil is allowed free expression, or that God is not omnipotent enough to counter the evil acts of Satan. So, even as a Christian, I concluded that Evil (pain & suffering) must be a part of God's plan, from the beginning, and Satan (the accuser, adversary, prosecutor) was just an agent for testing Faith, as indicated in the book of Job.

The reference to "a harp-strumming afterlife" was also an expression of my rejection of almost all life-after-life doctrines. The afterlife views of pre-Judaism Hebrews was similar to that of the Egyptians, in that a heavenly hereafter was reserved for those who where already gods in human form (Pharaoh), who was just going home, after a brief sojourn on Earth. The average Hebrew or Egyptian had no reason to expect anything after death but eternal darkness in the grave (Sheol). Again, today, those who hope to go to heaven, or a higher dimension, or Nirvana, seem to assume that God (or Fate) made a mistake in assigning them to endure the sufferings of an imperfect world. By contrast, I assume that this imperfect world was intended to evolve toward a more perfect state. It's an experiment, not in blind faith, but in freewill under less than optimal conditions.

Admittedly though, that feeble alternative to Fatalism, is no consolation for those of us currently living in this uncertain world of ups and downs. That's why I find Existentialism to be a pragmatic solution -- to make the best of a bad situation, by adapting your attitude to reality, rather than expecting reality to change to suit your preferences. So, my personal moderated Optimism is not based on hope for Salvation. Of course, it also means that, if I wake-up after death with wings & harps, I will be pleasantly surprised. :smile:

OK, I'll move. Your relentless optimism reminds me of a program, featured perhaps in a scene cut from The Matrix. Don't get me wrong. You add value. Another vegetable in the soup. — Zugzwang

Thanks. It's hard to find reasons for optimism on a relentlessly hyper-critical forum. I do find that having philosophical and scientific reasons for (moderated) optimism is far preferable to the grim (we're all in this alone) Existentialism of Materialism.

I gave up my blind faith in religious salvation long ago. And it's hard to find reasons for optimism on a forum full of hyper-critical cynicism. But the knowledge that our world is not merely an astronomical accident -- randomly going nowhere -- does provide some incentive for global optimism -- realizing that the world is not just going to hell in a handbasket, but actually progressing toward some higher state.

Realistically though, my optimism is moderated by the less-than-perfect current state of affairs. But knowing that the future can be better than the past is enough incentive for positivity to avoid sinking into existentialist despair. So, I'm just following the advice of Sartre : to accept the personal responsibility for giving my life meaning and value, by constructing an idiosyncratic positive worldview from the latest available evidence, instead of taking some ancient Utopian myth on faith.
Signed, Just Another Veggie in the Stone Soup :cool:

Existential despair', a painful sense that no human activity of any kind could ever be of any worth. 'Life is nothing until it is lived. It is we who give it meaning, and value is nothing more than the meaning we give it.' - Jean Paul Sartre.
https://www.icaad.com/blog/existential-despair

An idiosyncratic person is someone who does things in his own way

Reply to Wayfarer :
"That positive progressive outlook doesn't necessarily give us reason to hope-for-heaven, or to expect an idyllic harp-strumming afterlife. But it does give us a reason to be mildly optimistic about the ups & downs of a less-than-perfect reality. It also allows us to create our own personal goals beyond mere clinging to life, and making recreation of procreation. Although we are not (yet) in full control of the cosmos, human culture is motivated by imagining a near-future Utopia, to aim for in our personal and political aspirations."

It's your move. :wink:

this whole 'information craze' starts with Norbert Weiner's Cybernetics, where he says 'information is information, not matter or energy.' — Wayfarer

Yes, the 20th century "information craze" has earned the label of "The Information Age". But, as you noted, most of the attention has been directed toward the empty vessels that computers encode with mathematical values, that are neither matter nor energy, but abstract ratios & relationships.

However, my interest is primarily in the meaningful aspects of Information, which was the original referent of the term : the contents of Minds, not Brains; Intelligence, not Data. Unfortunately, since many of the posters on this forum are materialists -- with philosophical physics envy -- I am forced to deal more with the tangible forms of Information. But that's OK. The ubiquity of Information (the matter-energy-information equivalence) is a part of its intrigue for me.

So, for me, the 21st century Information explosion is going beyond the mere enthusiasm over pragmatic malleable data, and has crept into every corner of the human experience. Information is not just a practical tool, it's the essence of everything. :smile:

It’s fine to have your own private metaphysics I guess. But I did think you were aiming to go beyond this kind of simplistic understanding of “information”. — apokrisis

I'm afraid a "simplistic" understanding is the best I can do, since I am not trained in more complicated interpretations, and technical jargon (" ontic structural realism"). So, I try to describe my "private metaphysics" in language that a layman can understand. So no, I was not aiming to produce an abstruse academic paper for a few philosophical pundits. :cool:

↪apokrisis
↪Gnomon
:cry: — 180 Proof

I'm glad to see that you enjoyed the addition of a little optimism and positivism, not to say Pollyannaism, in your bleak Realistic life. Apparently, you were so overwhelmed with emotion, that it brought tears to your eyes. :joke:

The problem I see with that is that the sole criteria for success in evolutionary theory is just to survive and to procreate. That's why 'evolutionary ethics' can only ever amount to either utilitarianism or pragmatism, there is no sense of being an over-arching purpose or aim. — Wayfarer

The Enformationism worldview does not claim to "know" what the "over-arching" purpose of this experiment in evolution might be. Barring a direct revelation from the Programmer, all we can say is that our world seems to be progressing toward some future state that is more complex and integrated than our current situation.

That positive progressive outlook doesn't necessarily give us reason to hope-for-heaven, or to expect an idyllic harp-strumming afterlife. But it does give us a reason to be mildly optimistic about the ups & downs of a less-than-perfect reality. It also allows us to create our own personal goals beyond mere clinging to life, and making recreation of procreation. Although we are not (yet) in full control of the cosmos, human culture is motivated by imagining a near-future Utopia, to aim for in our personal and political aspirations.

Of course, a solid grounding in Pragmatism will make our Romantic imagination more likely to succeed. That's why most human societies have produced idealistic religious systems, in addition to pragmatic political organizations. to encourage us to keep-on-keeping-on, despite the daily setbacks and disappointments. The human ability to imagine a more perfect world gives us an advantage over the "lower" animals, who can only deal with Reality in a Pragmatic survival-of-the-fittest mode.

I can't say for sure that our world was designed with mankind in mind. But a historical perspective shows that the rate of change (both positive and negative) has accelerated since the advent of Homo Sapiens. That progression is most obvious in the form of technology, which gives us control over Nature far beyond the innate tools of animals. But, we can also see some degree of moral & ethical progress, as described by Steven Pinker's The Better Angels of Our Nature. Therefore, if we look at the world from a higher & broader vantage, we can find more philosophical criteria for success, than just our biological animal nature. :smile:

↪Gnomon
Does your approach have any connection to Wolfram’s cellular automata theory or Deutsch’s constructor theory? There is a lot of maths in this area - genetic algorithms, edge of chaos, critical systems, etc. Do you ground things in some model? — apokrisis

No. I am not a scientist, nor a mathematician. I'm just an amateur philosopher, who created his own personal worldview -- for his own private personal use -- based on a layman's unfettered alchemy of Quantum Queerness and Information Ubiquity. My Enformationism philosophy is not grounded in any particular model of physics or cosmology. Instead, it combines elements of a variety of both ancient & modern models, and both philosophical & physical concepts. But, they are all bound together, into a whole system, by the notion that Information is the fundamental element of the real world. The key influences of my model can be traced back to Plato and Aristotle, and the conceptual offshoots of those seeds have survived the weeding-out process of both Natural and Cultural Evolution.

Speaking of which, Darwin's notion of "survival of the fittest" applies, not just to physical organisms, but also to metaphysical concepts. So, the ancient intuition of cosmic Teleology, has been refined in the forge of scientific evolution, and currently takes the form of Eutaxiology. That's why the Enformationism thesis is not a religious worldview, despite the inclusion of the notion of a "Creator" or "Programmer". The logical necessity for such "First Causes" comes not from divine revelation, but from philosophical reasoning and inference. Even after several thousand years of scientific maturation, the basic logic still applies to any space-time process, and to meta-physical thinking. If the Enformationism thesis is "grounded" in any model, it would be the recent revelation of Matter-Energy-Information equivalence. And that equation crosses the artificial boundaries between Scientific, Philosophical, and Religious worldviews. :nerd:


Eutaxiology (from the Greek eu – good, and tax – order) is the philosophical study of order and design. It is distinguished from teleology in that it does not focus on the purpose or goal of a given structure or process, merely the degree and complexity of the structure or process.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eutaxiology

The mass-energy-information equivalence principle :
Landauer’s principle formulated in 1961 states that logical irreversibility implies physical irreversibility and demonstrated that information is physical.
https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/1.5123794

Inside knowledge: Is information the only thing that exists? :
Physics suggests information is more fundamental than matter, energy, space and time – the problems start when we try to work out what that means
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23431191-500-inside-knowledge-is-information-the-only-thing-that-exists/

To talk of "good and bad" is way too simplistic - a dualism that wants to be reduced to a monism. . . . Your argument falls apart before it gets started if it is couched in merely anti-symmetric terms like positive-negative and good-bad. — apokrisis

I don't emphasize the "good and bad", because my philosophy is BothAnd. It acknowledges the Duality of Reality, but "reduces" to a Monism in Holism. :smile:

Both/And Principle :
My coinage for the holistic principle of Complementarity, as illustrated in the Yin/Yang symbol. Opposing or contrasting concepts are always part of a greater whole. Conflicts between parts can be reconciled or harmonized by putting them into the context of a whole system.
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page10.html
Note -- there's lots more at the link

But you are taking things back to a simplistic religious framing that just accepts there is a problem of evil, or a problem if a creator isn't the determiner of every detail. — apokrisis

No, I don't believe the Creator is the "determiner of every detail". Instead, the Programmer created an evolutionary program that works out the details via trial & error, not magical intervention. :cool:

Evolutionary Programming :
Special computer algorithms inspired by biological Natural Selection. It is similar to Genetic Programming in that it relies on internal competition between random alternative solutions to weed-out inferior results, and to pass-on superior answers to the next generation of algorithms. By means of such optimizing feedback loops, evolution is able to make progress toward the best possible solution – limited only by local restraints – to the original programmer’s goal or purpose. In Enformationism theory the Prime Programmer is portrayed as a creative deity, who uses bottom-up mechanisms, rather than top-down miracles, to produce a world with both freedom & determinism, order & meaning.
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page13.html

But talking of a programmer immediately makes chance a big metaphysyical problem. Computers are deterministic devices. Chance doesn't even enter the story. And to claim some "swerve" to introduce uncertainty is a patent act of desperation. — apokrisis

You have missed the whole point of the Enformationism worldview. An Evolutionary Program is not "deterministic", but it is teleological, in that there is an Intention (goal) that drives the Selection of the fittest. No "desperation: needed, just a modicum of Reason. :nerd:

But what we see is that most folk get stuck at the first step - a symmetry breaking that only speaks of two directions at the one scale of being. — apokrisis

A symmetry break does indeed begin with a duality, as in the mitosis of a cell : one becomes two. But that's just the first step. For example, a single stem cell has the potential to evolve into a variety of functional cells. The antique notion of a "swerve" was just an attempt to explain how a linear process could become non-linear. For example light always travels in a straight line --- until it encounters curved space, that is. :joke:

If light bends/deflects due to gravity, then why do we say that light travels in a straight line? :
https://www.quora.com/If-light-bends-deflects-due-to-gravity-then-why-do-we-say-that-light-travels-in-a-straight-line

So your story predicts neither what physics has figured out about the start of the Universe, nor what sociology has figured out about the organisation of biological collectives. — apokrisis

I'm sorry. But you won't have a clue what my "story" predicts, until you have heard the whole story. The Enformationism website is just the first chapter. The rest of the story is told in an ongoing series of blogs. I think you are confusing my 21st century creation myth with the traditional stories of creation, that are steeped in Magic instead of Science. :halo:

Enformationism : http://enformationism.info/enformationism.info/

Ultimate Enforming Principle : http://bothandblog5.enformationism.info/page24.html

Productive metaphysics instead continues on from this kind of "dualism yearning to be monism" to a fully-broken dichotomy - one with the asymmetry of a hierarchical or triadically-developed scale. The division has to be complementary - mutually exclusive/jointly exhaustive - so that all its causes are to be found within it. No need for transcendence. — apokrisis

In the Enformationism worldview, the Big Bang "division" was also "complementary" (BothAnd). The only "transcendence" is in the sense that a Programmer transcends the Program. You might say that the metaphysical Intention (Will) of the Programmer is embodied in the physical expression of the evolutionary program. To wit : Mental Information (Idea, Form, Concept), is transformed into Causal EnFormAction (Energy), which then transforms into the physical expression of the original concept (Matter, Sculpture). Just as a pool shooter is not on the table, only the First Cause transcends the Effect : an evolving chain of Causation. Can your "triadic" scale explain the Big Bang without reference to some prior Agency? Could our finite evolving universe be it's own Cause? :smirk:

PS__An eternal circular process has all its "causes within it". But it's going nowhere. By contrast, a linear one-way process, from hot Big Bang to cold Big Sigh (heat death), must have an origin, a First Cause, a Prime Mover -- a Reason for Being.

Why would the Big Daddy in the Sky go to all the trouble of pre-arranging an anthropically structured Big Bang that takes 13 billion years to eventually deliver the fleeting blip of a biofilm on some random chunk of real estate? — apokrisis

I don't know why an intentional universe creator would bother to instigate a messy world like ours. But I have a theory, based on my Enformationism worldview. It's obvious to me that the mythical creator of the idyllic Garden of Eden is a fairy tale. Other ancient creation myths included the imperfect workman Demiurge of Plato, or the Gnostic's evil god Ialdabaoth. Those gods were not Omnipotent or Omni-benign, and their creative deficiencies are reflected in the imperfect world we inhabit today.

So, anyone postulating a non-accidental creation event must confront the Problem of Evil. And the only resolution I can think of is to assume that the omnipotent Creator has the potential for both Good and Evil. That's the kernel of my BothAnd principle : the real world has both good & bad properties, from the human perspective, so any explanation for the world's existence must resolve that innate contradiction. And just blaming it on random accidents is not explanatory.

Therefore, instead of a loving "Big Daddy", I envision a General Creative Principle that is more like abstract Mathematics than flesh & blood Mankind. Math includes both positive and negative values. So, the entity I call "The Enformer" or "G*D", is an update of Plato's LOGOS, but also includes the principles of Ethos and Pathos. Since Reason, Character, and Emotion are characteristics of our world, specifically the Cultural aspects instead of the Natural properties, the First Cause must have possessed the Aristotelian Potential for those same qualities.

In keeping with the theme of Enformationism, the hypothetical Enformer, was essentially a Programmer, not a Magician. By that I mean S/he initiated an evolving process, instead of merely saying the magic words : "let there be light', and presto! a perfect world appears. As a result of programming a Singularity with design parameters (laws & initial conditions), a prolonged process of Evolution began, and will have an end. The End will be the output of the program. And, due to the inherent randomizing uncertainties, presumably even the Programmer does not know exactly what the Final Answer will be ( maybe 42). Evolutionary Programming is inherently uncertain, but by a process of trial & error, it gradually optimizes itself, by means of looping feedback (mutations & selection).

I won't go into the details of the Enforming hypothesis here, but you can simply think of it as a 21st century Myth, or as Science Fiction, if you like. But remember, that all other explanatory alternatives (Inflation, Multiverse, etc) are likewise fictional projections from what's known, into the unknown territory beyond the boundaries of space-time. So, my story can only be judged by its philosophical explanatory power, not by its empirical evidence. :cool:


G*D :
* An ambiguous spelling of the common name for a creator deity. The Enformationism thesis is based upon an unprovable axiom that our world is an idea in the mind of G*D. This eternal deity is not imagined in a physical human body, but in a meta-physical mathematical form, equivalent to Logos. Other names : ALL, BEING, Creator, Enformer, MIND, Nature, Reason, Source, Programmer. The eternal Whole, of which all temporal things are a part, is not to be feared or worshiped, but appreciated like Nature.
* I refer to the logically necessary and philosophically essential First & Final Cause as G*D, rather than merely "X" the Unknown, partly out of respect. That’s because the ancients were not stupid, to infer purposeful agencies, but merely shooting in the dark. We now understand the "How" of Nature much better, but not the "Why". That inscrutable agent of Entention is what I mean by G*D.
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page13.html

Demiurge : a god is a deity while demiurge is something (as an institution, idea, or individual) conceived as an autonomous creative force or decisive power.
Note -- the Demiurge functions like a computer program, which obeys the instructions of its programmer as it carries-out an assigned task. In my story, the program works-out a "what-if" question, based on certain parameters. But, if the programmer knew the answer in advance, the program wouldn't be necessary. Yet, there are non-factual philosophical questions that can only be answered in practice, not theory.

He means that life and mind transcend their worlds by being organisms with an intentional point of view. — apokrisis

Was that transcendent "intentional" perspective inevitable : due to an accidental structure of the Singularity, or to an intentional arrangement of its structure? Is Life-Mind-Intention a product of combining matter with physical laws? If so, which? And in what proportions? :smile:

Nope. The structuralist view is just arguing that the regularities of nature are immanent rather than transcendent. They emerge from the chaos of possibility as structural inevitabilities, rather than being God-given laws that animate matter. — apokrisis

Well, duh! The structural regularities of our universe are necessarily immanent in the structure of the system. But how the system arrived at that highly-unlikely anthropic structure is an open question. Apparently. by "chaos of possibility" you mean that a human-friendly universe is an astronomical accident. That would be a Weak Anthropic argument. And the Las Vegas odds, of such a cosmic-coincidence-of-initial-conditions occurring in finite time (in eternity anything possible must happen), are a bad bet. Therefore, the theory of Inflation was proposed to cover the bet in a fraction of a Planck second. But, if you believe in such Voila!-instant-universe-from-nothing Magic, I have some prime real estate in Afghanistan to sell you. :joke:

What Are The Odds? :
If modern physics is to be believed, we shouldn’t be here. The meager dose of energy infusing empty space, which at higher levels would rip the cosmos apart, is a trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion times tinier than theory predicts.
https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-multiverses-measure-problem-20141103/

The contest here is between two ways of looking at the metaphysics of Being - the transcendent and the immanent. And it is not even a contest. — apokrisis

I agree. To assume that Life & MInd & Intention & Love emerged from "the chaos of possibilities" is believable, only if that infinite Chaos was limited & enformed by the logical structure of Cosmos. Therefore, the infinite potential of Chaos and the finite structure of Cosmos logically must exist prior to the actualization of potential and the realization of Cosmos in the Big Bang. And that priority is what I would call "Transcendent", in that neither Infinity nor cosmic potential can be found immanent in the actual universe we inhabit. So, Transcendence wins by a mile. Yet, it is still Structuralism. :nerd:

Chaos :
In ancient Greek creation myths Chaos was the void state preceding the creation of the universe or cosmos. It literally means "emptiness", but can also refer to a random undefined unformed state that was changed into the orderly law-defined enformed Cosmos. In modern Cosmology, Chaos can represent the undefined state from which the Big Bang defined (created) space/time.
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page12.html

Of course, the entire question also seems to presuppose some sort of "God's Eye View" through which all truth corresponds to facts of being. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes. Those scientists, who address the question of "something from nothing", necessarily assume an omniscient view of eternal existence prior to the Big Bang. For example, a Multiverse, of which our 'verse is merely one of zillions, is necessarily eternal, in order to escape the question of "how do you account for something new and without precedence?" In the multiverse model, a Creator (from scratch) is not necessary. because what you see now, is what has always existed in one form or another. But then, who created the Multiverse, or was it self-created? That eternal power to create new worlds is uncannily god-like. :joke:

He was pointing out how this way of speaking retains a transcendental framing that doesn’t make causal sense. — apokrisis

In the first paragraph of Tallis' article, entitled “The Laws of Nature”, he says : “. . . to apply that knowledge {about states of matter] outside of the laboratories in support of our agency [free will], are perhaps the most striking expressions of the way in which humans transcend the material world”. He doesn't specifically address the question of “causal sense”. But he seems to be in favor of “transcendental framing” of the FreeWill question, which he has addressed in previous articles and books. In which he concludes that "freewill is not an illusion", i.e not "woo". His framing of the freewill question seems to me to be inherently transcendental.

Transcendental Freedom :
What is more, the Existential Intuition opens up the sense of transcendent objects that are, by analogy with the embodied self, more than what the self experiences of them. ___Tallis
https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/how-can-i-possibly-be-free

The start would be the least habitual possible state of being. — apokrisis

So, you agree that the ultimate source of “habitual” [regular, reliable] behaviors, rather than acquired in the process of evolution, could inferred as laws of nature [necessities] that predate the Bang. By that I mean, if-then instructions for system operation that were programmed into the seed (Singularity) of the Big Bang?

You mean, the future is the Heat Death? Well, duh. — apokrisis

That “duh, everybody knows about heat death” conclusion came as a surprise to Einstein, who assumed a stable and eternal universe in his calculations. And only when faced with contrary evidence, was forced to rename his Cosmological Constant as what we now know as Dark Energy.

But you can only argue this way by rejecting the alternative that Tallis writes about. . . . Have you simply misunderstood Tallis here? You are taking the view he critiques. — apokrisis

The alternative you refer to may be where he looks at an alternative to the notion of mandated laws, “the laws of nature do not shape what happens but are simply the shape of what happens" (e.g. a river formed by accidents). To me, that “explanation” is what he is arguing against -- saying “they come to look less like explanations than descriptions". In other words, describing the effect is not the same as explaining the cause.

You are quite right that many physicists just talk about the laws of nature as if they were written in the mind of God. . . . .I agree they are dealing in woo to the extent they remain mired in such an ontology. — apokrisis

I suspect that those physicists, such as Isaac Newton, who called the necessities of nature “laws”, would not agree with your label of “woo”, for anything that does not comport with your own ontology. They were not being “anti-realist”, but describing reality in terms that everyone could understand. Those who prefer to call those dependable regularities “habits” are implying that they could have been otherwise. But how would they know that, except by re-running the program of evolution several times to see if each execution followed the same basic path. All we know for sure is that Nature seems to be constrained by built-in limitations. So, if you imagine a reality with different constraints you will be dealing with imaginary “woo”, rather than with Reality as we know it. :cool:

Looking at the sun "With-Both-Eyes-Open" will completely blind you. — 180 Proof

Ha! Ever the contrarian. Another point of wisdom is "don't look directly at the sun, with one eye or two."
:smile:

Aren’t you just re-mystifying the view that Tallis wants to de-mystify?

The Big Bang falls within his description of Natural Habits. Regularity is emergent as symmetries are broken and the general cooling-expansion of the Universe prevents its ever returning to its less organised past. — apokrisis

Although he doesn't make it explicit in the article, Tallis seems to be raising the same old questions that many scientists would put-down to "Mysticism", or even worse, "feckless Philosophy". Having noted that [natural] "laws somehow act upon the 'stuff' of nature from outside it", and that [natural] "laws are a 'quasi-agency'", he seems to be poking his nose into fundamental mysteries. "Outside of nature" is what many call "super-natural". I was merely going along for the ride on the horse that Tallis was directing.

Speaking of "outside nature", how could the Big Bang -- the first stage of an ongoing series -- be labelled a "habit"? Are you implying that it was just another routine step in an eternal cycle of repetitions? For most cosmologists, the BB is the beginning of what we now call "Nature". And anything prior to that, such as habitual regularities would be pure speculation, on super-natural questions. Of course, some of those cosmologists can't help such conjectures, even when it gets them into "woo" territory.

If the universe is prevented, by Entropy, from "ever returning" to it's initial state, that means it's a one-way trip. And not cyclical, as some would have it. In football lingo, "it's one and done". In that case, what might have preceded that auspicious, for us humans, beginning is a legitimate -- not mystical -- philosophical question. It's not a scientific question though, because it cannot be dis-proven empirically. But, since the BB was indeed a "big deal" for those of us who ask "why" questions, trying to de-mystify the provenance of the BB is an act of Wisdom, not necessarily a slippery-slope to Woo.

If our world is defined by its context, the circumstances that led to the BB need to be defined in some way, before we can claim to have a complete philosophical worldview. Of course, some people have religious or political motives, rather than philosophical or scientific reasons for asking such questions. But, by reflexively labeling all such "before the beginning" questions as Woo or Weirdness, would tar many serious scientists and philosophers with the same brush as the "religious nuts" and "wacko weirdos".

That's why I don't accept the "woo" label for my inquiries. Instead, I see it as Science-With-Both-Eyes-Open. Your left eyes informs the analytical & reductive right brain, while the right eye views the world through the filter of the intuitive & holistic left brain. Together, we get a stereoscopic 3D worldview. But with one eye closed, we are blind to half of Reality . . . and may label the missing parts as "woo", or worse. :smile:



Provenance : the beginning of something's existence; something's origin.

Philosophy :
Quite literally, the term "philosophy" means, "love of wisdom." In a broad sense, philosophy is an activity people undertake when they seek to understand fundamental truths about themselves, the world in which they live, and their relationships to the world and to each other.
https://philosophy.fsu.edu/undergraduate-study/why-philosophy/What-is-Philosophy

Context : the circumstances that form the setting for an event, statement, or idea, and in terms of which it can be fully understood and assessed.

"The beginning of wisdom is the definition of terms." - Socrates?

So yes. We can boil it down to metaphysical first principles like the dialectical opposition of law and chance. But then we want to avoid the chicken and egg debates about which came first, or which is the ground to the other. That is the kind of causal logic that sets up the two sides of the one story as disjunct monisms. Both good old fashioned materialism and good old fashioned theist woo (or idealism) are logically in error because of their shared reductionism. — apokrisis

I'm not qualified to discuss some of the technical issues you raise concerning Big Bang theory. But, I can grok your notion of a "dialectical opposition of law and chance". I see that creative dialectic in Darwin's concept of Evolution : Randomness generates diversity, and Selection (apokrisis -- choose, sort out, decide) winnows down the multiplicity to the "fittest" few. Randomness is a series of unrelated accidents, while Selection chooses only those accidents that have something in common : fitness for a niche in Nature. But post-Darwin scientists, with a reductionist worldview, tended to put their emphasis on the chaotic unregulated aspects, and took for granted the orderly regulatory function of Natural Selection. But, from a more holistic perspective, NS seems to be essentially a "law of Nature".

In the June-July issue of Philosophy Now magazine, Ray Tallis notes that the laws of Nature seem to be more than just "habits" or "regularities", and act like directional agents for the path forward of evolution. He raises the "dubious notion" of natural laws as "being agencies in themselves". He presents the metaphor of a horse, which in a state of nature acts upon its own internal urges and needs : eating grass, propagating the species, and escaping predators. But a horse with a human rider, behaves completely differently. It is under the control of an external agent, who has needs and goals that may often be in opposition to those internal motives.

He discusses linear "natural necessity" as compared with some unpredictable irregular patterns of natural behavior. The "necessity" view says that "the laws of nature do not shape what happens, but are simply the shape of what happens". In that case, "the laws of nature . . . come to look less like explanations than descriptions". They are mere regularities, instead of regulators. This would mean that "the natural world is not the obedient servant of a legislative master", as implied by the original meaning of a top-down Royal Mandate intrinsic to the word "Law".

Tallis disagrees with the "that's just the way it is" implication that the predictability of nature. that scientists rely on, is a mere time-worn groove in stone. Instead, he says, "necessity is verbal, logical, or theological, as such, it has no place in grown-up philosophy of science". Ironically, while the laws of Nature are reliable, the laws of Science are continually being revised as our understanding deepens and matures : to wit -- predictable Newtonian Laws as superceded by unpredictable Quantum behaviors. Which he sums up as, "there has been a gap between the habits of nature (which do not change) and the laws of science (which do)".

And that brings him back to his original topic : "the compatibility of law-like nature, with the exercise of freedom by human agents". Within the scope of Nature, we have the steady, but non-progressive cycles of the horse, which continues to behave as its ancestors did millions of years ago. On the other hand, we have the relentless, but unpredictable progression of human Culture, riding the horse, with a will of its own. By imposing its will, human nature gains the freedom from natural laws, that allow it to become a guiding agency astride the horse. Thus a Metaphysical Principle rules over the Physical Habits of Nature. Which raises the "dubious" question of who or what was the Lawmaker, Regulator, Selector, Agent, Rider for the powerful Big Bang horse. Is that too woo to be true? :smile:

I disagree with your interpretation, Gnomon, because Max Tegmark explicitly says – which I point out in my previous post – that he is not proposing the "MU" merely as "a mental construct". Read The Mathematical Universe or stream video of one of Tegmark's lectures on this thesis.
Reality. Ironically, Tegmark has been called a "radical Platonist". So, I would be surprised if that was compatible with your own (Realist?) worldview.
I don't agree with that common misconception either.
[Tegmark's MUH] looks like hyper-Platonism to many but more like Spinozism to me. — 180 Proof
I answer favorably to being called an "Epicurean-Spinozist". — 180 Proof

OK. I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on Tegmark's Platonic inclinations. But maybe we can at least agree on the "Spinozist" half of your "Epicurean-Spinozist" label. If I was to choose such a hyphenated label, I'd probably make it "Stoic-Spinozist". But then, I'm not really comfortable with butterfly pin labels. So, you can just call me a "gnarly-Gnomonist". :grin:

Tegmark quite explicitly says that "minds" are (like) recursive mathematical functions and "matter" is a type of interaction by recursive mathematical functions with encompassing mathematical systems which are nested within (higher order / dimensional) mathematical structures aka "the mathematical universe". In other words, the hypothesis is 'mind-matter is in the math' (i.e. abstract agent-systems within abstract world-structures ... like e.g. the Second Life virtual world), not the other way around. — 180 Proof

I'm not sure what you're saying here. Are you agreeing or disagreeing with my interpretation that the Mathematical Universe is a mental construct? That doesn't mean it's an illusion or un-real, just that the mathematical structure is universal, and can be perceived by animal senses, that are tuned to certain forms of Information (electromagnetic spectrum). But the MUH itself is a conception of rational minds. We perceive Matter (things), but we conceive Structure (relationships). And both concrete Matter & abstract Structure are real-world forms of Generic Information.

I'm hardly an expert on Tegmark's hypothesis, but it sounds roughly compatible with my own understanding, that Information (including mathematical information) is the fundamental element of Reality. Ironically, Tegmark has been called a "radical Platonist". So, I would be surprised if that was compatible with your own (Realist?) worldview. Anyway, I doubt that Tegmark would fully endorse my own updated version of Platonism : Enformationism. And, I'm not sure I can agree with some of his far-out notions : e.g. "Perceptronium", as a "state of mattter". That sounds like something from a Harry Potter story. :grin:

Mathematical universe hypothesis :
Tegmark's MUH is: Our external physical reality is a mathematical structure.. . .
The MUH is based on the radical Platonist view that math is an external reality . . .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_universe_hypothesis

Physicists Say Consciousness Might Be a State of Matter :
Tegmark calls his new state of matter “perceptronium.”
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/physicists-say-consciousness-might-be-a-state-of-matter/

What did he mean? Should the title of his book be "My mathematical Universe"? If Max himself is a math structure, then how should we interpret him? — Prishon

I think you have answered your own question. The "mathematical universe" he's talking about exists only in Minds, not in Matter. So, his "universe" and your "universe" are not the same "verse", but both are references to a Platonic Ideal universe. The physical universe is something we all have in common, because our bodily senses are tuned to information in the form of Matter & Energy.

However, Mathematics is not found in those concrete categories. It is instead an abstract idea, from which all physical stuff has been extracted, leaving only intangible ratios and relationships. We "sense" those invisible connections between things with our sixth sense of Reason, which extracts the essence of things from the non-essential.

Regarding "structure", Structural Engineers don't manipulate actual physical structures in their computers. Instead, they represent real beams & columns as mathematical abstractions, symbolized as lines (structural members) and arrows (forces). Likewise, the Universe Tegmark is talking about is not the real universe that we all have in common, but the symbolic universe that each of us constructs in his own mind. It's a personal worldview. But his abstract "view" can be simulated in a computer, all rational minds to see.

So you should "interpret" Tegmarks ideas in relation to your own ideas. your individual worldview. If your world is Realistic & Materialistic, then Tegmark is talking non-sense, literally about stuff that is not perceived by physical senses. But, if your cosmology is Idealistic & Intellectual, he's speaking about your intellectually shared cosmos. :smile:

Mathematics :
the abstract science of number, quantity, and space. Mathematics may be studied in its own right ( pure mathematics ), or as it is applied to other disciplines such as physics and engineering ( applied mathematics ).

Islam was successful in the past because it celebrated diversity and pluralism. It practiced religious tolerance. The fundamentalist groups you are talking about are at war with modernism and pluralism and are essentially a savage pietistic reform movement. People keep saying Islam needs a reformation. The problem is Islamic State may be what a reformation in Islam looks like. Stephen Schwartz wrote an interesting book on the nature of Islam's struggle with fundamentalism called the Two Faces of Islam back in 2002. Irshad Manji ( a gay, Canadian Islamic woman) wrote an equally interesting book on the nature of contemporary Islamic intolerance called The Trouble with Islam. It's hard to imagine a successful state emerging from a foundation of captious hatred, but anything is possible. — Tom Storm

Ironically. the biggest obstacle to the Taliban, in attempting to establish an orderly Islamic state in Afghanistan, is internal tensions. According to news reports, ISIS may be their biggest revolutionary competition. And ISIS seems to as opposed to Taliban apostates as to American infidels.

During the 16th century Reformation era. the Roman Church was internally divided, and savagely intolerant of tolerance. To wit : the Inquisition, burning fellow Christians at the stake. Since then, it has continued to fragment from a world-dominating religious empire, to just another burned-out core of its former glory, with ornate church buildings turned into nightclubs.

In the same sense, history repeats itself again. And Islam seems to be undergoing its own earthquake Reformation, beginning with Sunni versus Shiite, then on down to smaller sects. Maybe that's just as well --- better for them to fight among themselves than to re-conquer the whole world in the name of a long-dead prophet. Maybe diversity and pluralism will likewise re-arise from the blood & ashes, like the Phoenix. :cool:


Afghanistan crisis: What makes Islamic State-Khorasan enemy of Taliban
https://www.indiatoday.in/world/story/afghanistan-taliban-islamic-state-crisis-1847109-2021-08-30

There was a Planck-sized accumulation of quantum fields fluctuating (virtual particles, to make it popular scientific visible). This tiny ball (of which the accompanying real particles are 4dimensional spatial spheres wrapped up on a rolled up 5dimensional space) expands on a 4dimensional infinite space — Prishon

Accumulation from Where and When? The notion of a "tiny ball" sounds like ancient Atomism, except that it assumes the existence of highly compressed internal parts, that can be released, like an atom bomb, by a quantum fluctuation of ambient Space, which is presumably external and prior-to the existence of that ball. In that case, the Singularity "ball" has a prehistory and a position in infinite space-time. How did ambient multidimensional space get compressed into that sub-Planck-scale "point".

Does this imaginative scenario have empirical grounding? Was that "ball" a black hole (gravity well) remnant of a previous Universe, which emerged from the universe before that, in an infinite regress of "turtles all the way down"? Sounds like "space" is infinitely flexible, in both physical and mythical forms. :smile:

Singularity :
a point at which a function takes an infinite value, especially in space-time when matter is infinitely dense.

PS__Prishon say "what?".

So the Universe just had to cross a threshold where the unified conditions finally broke in the usual phase transition way. Or not so usual if this breaking also released an inflationary spurt. — apokrisis

Sorry, if I confused you. I was asking a philosophical "why" question, not a scientific "how" question.

As a philosophical layman, I tend to take the more holistic cosmological perspective of "Emergence", instead of the analytical reductive scientific view of "Phase Transitions". :nerd:

Phase Transition :
Phase transitions occur when the thermodynamic free energy of a system is non-analytic for some choice of thermodynamic variables
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase_transition

Evolutionary Emergence :
* As a supplement to the mainstream materialistic (scientific) theory of Causation, EnFormAction is intended to be an evocative label for a well-known, but somewhat mysterious, feature of physics : the Emergent process of Phase Change (or state transitions) from one kind (stable form) of matter to another. These sequential emanations take the structural pattern of a logical hierarchy : from solids, to liquids, to gases, and thence to plasma, or vice-versa. But they don't follow the usual rules of direct contact causation.
* Expand that notion to a Cosmological perspective, and we can identify a more general classification of stratified phase-like emergences : from Physics (energy), to Chemistry (atoms), to Biology (life), to Psychology (minds), to Sociology (global minds). Current theories attribute this undeniable stairstep progession to random accidents, sorted by “natural selection” (a code word for “evaluations” of fitness for the next phase) that in retrospect appear to be teleological, tending toward more cooperation of inter-relationships and entanglements between parts on the same level of emergence. Some AI enthusiasts even envision the ultimate evolution of a Cosmic Mind, informed by all lower level phases.
* Zoom back down to the sub-atomic level, and we find another set of "upward" emergences. From the universal Quantum Field of statistical possibilities, "virtual particles" or "wavicles" mysteriously appear from nowhere as almost real particles of matter, such as Bosons & Leptons. Those minimal particles of matter are bound together by strange forces into the paradoxical state of matter called "entanglement". They also tend to cluster into the dynamic structures we call Atoms, as-if foreordained to snap-fit into designated roles in the smallest whole systems. From that barely-real phase of reality, atoms assemble into molecules and thence into larger aggregations of matter. After each emergence, those integrated systems display complex patterns of information, and new physical properties . . . eventually even mental qualities never before seen in the mechanical material world.
http://bothandblog3.enformationism.info/page23.html

PS__ 180 Proof's answer to the topical question was "there is no why?". If that is the case, why are we discussing the BB on a philosophical forum instead of a scientific forum?

Prishon says: No symmetry between interaction! Symmetry break based on wrong assumption. Higgsy mechanism no exist! Matter antimatter are equal and were always equal. Also now! Anti rishons on othere side of 4d open torus! Anti quarki and anti lepton on other side. Quarki and lepton contain same anti as normal. On other side of open torus Prishon sees anti quarki and anti leptoni. But on both sides equal number both. — Prishon

Exactly! :wink:

↪Gnomon
"Both sides" of what? I can't follow you, G. My mention of "woo" is explicated in the post you reference (first paragraph). — 180 Proof

I'm not sure. I'm not taking sides. But I'm referring to whatever alternatives you have in mind when categorizing the Science versus Woo controversy. It's all philosophy to me. :grin:

So we discover there is this broken symmetry at the root of things. It is not unreasonable to wind that back to the symmetry state that marks its beginning. — apokrisis

Of course, I was putting words in Planck's mouth to illustrate the philosophical problem of the abrupt beginning of our space-time world from an initial state of infinity-eternity, that we are not able to penetrate with our physical science. Not to be deterred, we still attempt to go beyond that physical limit, with meta-physical imagination. And such speculation is posited by some famous serious scientists. Yet contrarians refer to some of those conjectures as "woo" (in a non-Shakesperean sense), while the other shot-in-the-dark guesses are "justified" scientific inference from limited information.

Anyway, I just read a section of a book, written by Astronomer/Physicist John Barrow, on "classical cosmology". There, he noted : "prior to the Planck time 10^-43 seconds we know nothing of the state of space and time nor even if such familiar entities existed". He goes on to say, "during this fleeting era (10^-43 to 10^-35 seconds) there is a complete symmetry between all these interactions (fundamental forces) . . . . complete symmetry between matter and antimatter". [my emphasis] So, according to the scientist's BB theory inferences from current conditions to Planck time conditions, the Singularity was symmetrically balanced.

Which raises the question for both materialist physicists and non-materialist meta-physicists, "what caused that sudden symmetry break . . . that instant imbalance?" Anything we say about that pre-Planck era is inherently speculative, and based on certain assumptions. The pertinent presumptions here are A- "matter (particles) is fundamental", or B- "mind (reason ; law) is fundamental. Neither side of this debate knows what it's talking about, in scientific terms. But as philosophical inferences, they are both worthy of serious consideration. IMHO. Scientists tend to prefer a physical scenario, such as the Quantum Fluctuation hypothesis (due to random Chance). And some Philosophers prefer to consider a non-random lawful scenario, such as Aristotle's First Cause/Prime Mover (a deity of "pure form"). Which acts via teleological Intention. Admittedly, the latter is not an empirical scientific theory, but then neither is the imaginary Quantum Fluctuation scenario. So, why not give due consideration to both propositions? :cool:


"The Swerve" refers to a key conception in the ancient atomistic theories according to which atoms moving through the void are subject to clinamen: while falling straight through the void, they are sometimes subject to a slight, unpredictable swerve.
__reference to De Rerum Natura, by Lucretius.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Swerve
Note : the poetic invention of a sudden unexpected change in course foreshadowed modern "Quantum Fluctuation" proposals to explain how acausal randomness can be a creative disruption of Chaos to produce an orderly organized world.

No woo required. — 180 Proof

Who said anything about "woo"?. What I said was :
"Both sides assume without evidence, that some-thing existed before our space-time era began. But one imagines that what-is-is-what-was. While the other envisions that what-was-is-what-will-be. ???" Now which side is pitching "woo"? Are you just being contrarian? :smile:

The only answer to Why that does not precipitate an infinite regress and, in effect, begs the question is There Is No Why. Rather: How did the BB come about?' 'Planck era' spontaneous symmetry breaking. — 180 Proof

"What came before the Big Bang?" questions stimulate some creative thinking on both sides of the Realistic Science versus Idealistic Philosophy divide. And "spontaneous symmetry breaking" is a genius modern myth, along with the math-magical metaphor of instantaneous-inflation-from-nothing-to-cosmos. Relative to the ironic evasive tactic of "no-thing is unstable", the notion of the pre-bang symmetry-of-nothingness is precious. Both sides assume without evidence, that some-thing existed before our space-time era began. But one imagines that what-is-is-what-was. While the other envisions that what-was-is-what-will-be. ???

Planck probably thought that by calculating the smallest possible measurable time or length, that fades into asymptosis or ellipsis, would put an end to such "before the beginning" nonsense. But, for curious philosophically inclined seekers, "what-if?" questions are irresistible honey for the imagination. And some posters on this forum will take-up hard-line (this-is-what-is) positions on such conjectures, which are by definition unverifiable. It would be nice, if for a change, we could just freely speculate on such pre-columbian "what's out there over the horizon?" scenarios, without coming to blows over which party is the biggest idiot : the short-cut-to-India optimists, or the sail-over-the-edge-pessimists. :cool:

I am left with the impression that the Taliban and ISIS are primitive people lacking in the ability to manage a modern city, let alone a whole nation. — Athena

From a historical perspective, the Taliban and ISIS are comparable to the "primitive" tribal barbarians, who sacked Rome, bringing an end to a world-wide military empire, but releasing & spreading the energy of a new world-dominating Imperial religion. At the time (circa 410 to 455 AD) the Vandals (etc) were disorganized & uncivilized, but fierce & hungry & bloodthirsty.

Centuries later, many of us on this presumably modern & civilized forum are descendants of those uncouth barbarians, So, there is room for hope that Afghanistan can recover from decades of being squeezed between the rock of dug-in defensive intolerant Islamic tradition, and the driving force of forward-leaning & aggressive Western Capitalism. Yet, it remains to be seen, if this sacking of a remote outpost of capitalist imperialism, will be followed by an adaptation of money-driven Western notions of civilization, or by a resurgence of the Islamic brand of sword-won colonialism. Or, perhaps to a re-flowering of the Golden Age of Islamic philosophy. :smile:

Assumption one: energy must cause change. It is a fundamental property of energy.
Assumption 2: the “singularity” is a uniform/ homogenous origin state.
Logically then, the only possibility for a singularity is therefore to become “un-single” ie. internally “divide” into two or more properties. — Benj96

Yes. Metaphorically, I think of the Singularity as an atom of Uranium undergoing fission. Unlike an atomic bomb though (the Big Bang), this ongoing division & distinction and aggregation & integration is not destructive, but constructive : building a world. It releases Energy, but in a prolonged self-controlled and self-organizing process. Hence, like a fertilized egg, it begins to divide from one into two, and thence into a multi-cellular organism. So, the key to such positive change is the act of Fertilization, which I liken to an input of teleological Information, as in programming a cybernetic system. That fertilizing "sperm" is what I call EnFormAction, the power to cause transformation and complexification. :nerd:


EnFormAction :
the creative power to enform; to cause transformations from one form to another.
1. As the generic power of creation (Big Bang, Singularity), it turns eternal Potential into temporal Actual, it transforms Platonic Forms into physical Things.
2. As physical energy (Causation), it is the power to cause changes in material structure.
3. As condensed energy (Matter), it is light speed vibrations slowed down to more stable states.
4. As animating energy (elan vital, Chi), it is the power to cause complex matter to self-move.
5. As mental energy (Consciousness; knowing), it is the power to store & process incoming information as meaning relative to self.
6. As self-awareness (Self-consciousness; Will-Power), it is the power to make intentional changes to self and environment.
7. As the holistic expression of the human Self (Soul), it is the essence or pattern that defines you as a person (Chi, Spirit).
http://bothandblog2.enformationism.info/page29.html

Cybernetics is a transdisciplinary and "antidisciplinary" approach concerned with regulatory and purposive systems—their structures, constraints, ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybernetics

The term cybernetic system has a clear quantitative definition. It is a system that dynamically matches acquired information to selected actions relative to a computational issue that defines the essential purpose of the system or machine. This notion requires that information and control be further quantified.
https://aip.scitation.org/doi/abs/10.1063/1.1477068?journalCode=apc