11-14-2020, 01:54 PM
(11-13-2020, 08:33 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: ** 13-Nov-2020 World View: Automata
(11-13-2020, 03:47 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: > I remember reading a freshman physics text in college. It stated
> that the inverse-square law applying to gravitation is correct to
> a level of certainty to roughly one in a billion for the
> exponent. That was in the 1970's. That was extremely
> convincing. Something similar was said of electrical charge and
> magnetism.
Really? Einstein might disagree.
As a practical matter, as for engineers. Under relativistic conditions, such things as gravitation, magnetism, and electrical charge might operate differently from expectations in classical models.
Quote:(11-13-2020, 03:47 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: > Absolute truth is possible only with ideals such as geometric and
> physical constructs. Once one enters the real world of physical
> objects and especially sentient creatures, things start to
> diverge.
Really? What's the sum of the interior angles of a triangle? You'd
say 180 degrees, and might think that's "absolute truth", but some
people would disagree with you.
On a plane, and not on a curved surface. Depending on the sort of curvature, a triangle inscribed upon that surface might have a sum of internal angles more or less than 180.
Quote:Does 1+1 = 10?
Sure. In binary.
In hexadecimal, 7 + 9 = 10
Note that we usually use decimal arithmetic, and someone using something other than base-10 so identifies this.
Quote:Is every statement either true or false? There are whole branches of
philosophy that deny the Law of the Excluded Middle.
Answers that depend upon the choice of someone who controls their truth cannot be said to be true or false before the person who controls the result completes the exercise. So suppose that I hold a bird in my hand (it's an origami 'bird' made out of paper, so you need feel no guilt about the exercise). I ask you whether the 'bird' is intact or crushed, and I want you to be wrong. If you say that the "bird" is crushed, then I open my hand to reveal an intact "bird". If you say that the "bird" is intact, then I tighten my hand to crush the "bird" and then open my hand to show a crushed "bird".
Then there are word games.
All (living) cats purr.
Morris does not purr.
Therefore Morris is not a cat.
(OK, this suggests that Morris is a dead cat or perhaps a dog). But can a 'living' cat not purr? Sure -- if it is a catfish, as in "channel cats" as sold for dinner in swampy parts of Arkansas, or if it is a person, as in "hep cat"). Or it could be this fellow:
(Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher, when he was a Detroit Tiger. Whoops... tigers are cats... sort of).
Speaking of tigers I have a joke involving a simile and a metaphor.
Do you know the difference between the late Gunther Gebel-Williams and a burglar?
Gunther Gebel-Williams could make a tiger act like a dog in his circus act.
A burglar... makes a tiger out of a dog!
...Dogs can act much like one or another cat. If it is going to act like a cat, it had better act like a house cat, or else you are in big trouble.
Quote:In mathematics, is every true statement provable? Is every provable
statement true. I don't think so. Absolute truth doesn't exist
anywhere, even in mathematics.
In number theory, Fermat's Last Theorem (sometimes called Fermat's conjecture, especially in older texts) states that no three positive integers a, b, and c satisfy the equation a^n + b^n = c^n for any integer value of n greater than 2. The cases n = 1 and n = 2 have been known since antiquity to have infinitely many solutions.
It was unproved from 1637 to 1994. It is now proved, with mathematical knowledge not available in Fermat's time. It was not provable until the 1950's at the earliest, at least with extant number theory applied to the proof of the conjecture of the theorem. Perhaps it can be proved with simpler means; perhaps it can't. Who knows? Maybe Pierre Fermat really did have a valid proof that was lost.
Quote:(11-13-2020, 03:47 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: > Historical predictions are not science. People are not unthinking
> automata. People who know that they are being watched will change
> their behavior. Even a mouse does. (There was a mouse that became
> an unwelcome guest, and we have a cat in the house. The mouse
> could smell the cat and avoid it. It couldn't resist the lure of
> peanut butter within a mouse trap, and it died in the mouse
> trap). Mice are more instinctive than we are.
I disagree that mice are more instinctive than humans. I disagree that
people who are being watched will necessarily change their behavior.
The entire Greek Tragedy paradigm is that the march to catastrophe
cannot be prevented, even by people who foresee the catastrophe,
even when the protagonists are being watched.
The mouse smells the cat and makes sure to go where the cat is not or stays in a place in the house whence he can make an easy escape should the cat come snooping around. I put the mouse trap in a place that offered an easy escape for the mouse if the cat came by. Mice know what a cat smells like and that a cat is death. That is instinct. Mice never developed the idea that there is no such thing as a free lunch, which is not instinct. An easy meal is just too tempting to resist.
For people who never learned that there is no such thing as a free lunch, the cops sometimes had a trick for catching them. The cops left an unlocked car in plain sight with something valuable in it. Soon enough some crook would look around to see if there were no cops watching and then would take the object.
Quote:Let me give an interesting analogy.
Suppose you throw a rock into a pond, and you see the waves form.
That MUST happen. The wave MUST form according to a certain
mathematical formula. It's physics.
OK. Particles of water will act under the influence of a mechanical shock that operates as a wave.
Quote:Now dive into one of the waves and look around you. You're surrounded
by individual water molecules. Think of the water molecules as your
friends or, if you prefer, think of yourself as one of the water
molecules. Each molecule is an individual that has free will, and can
go wherever it wants, and drift left or right or zip around, whatever
its little water molecule heart desires.
Unlike a water molecule I can change my direction and position within a pool. Water molecules do not have any choice. They cannot remain with me or pass through my cell boundaries. Water molecules will move away from me as I move into their position, and some will fillwhat would otherwise be a vacuum as I open a path for them.
Quote:Each individual water molecule can do what it wants, but the water
pond as a whole MUST act in a specified way, according to a
mathematical formula. The water molecules can do what they want
individually, but as a group they act in a specific way according to
the laws of physics.
Human behavior in mass can be highly predictable (for example, umbrella sales rise during a rainstorm but recede in good weather; people drink more beer and less hot chocolate in hot weather but do the opposite in cold weather). This said, human behavior over time is not so much that of automatons. People are more automaton-like if they are grossly unlearned (such as being stupid enough to filch something from an unlocked car) or if they live under a totalitarian regime, in which any unconventional behavior is defined into a violation of a criminal code. Thus an 'Aryan' having a sexual relationship with a 'non-Aryan') would be a violation of the Nuremberg Laws of the Third Reich.
much human behavior is learned. Most of us learn rather early that taking something that is not ours to take is a very bad idea. It is called theft. I have taken things inadvertently... and returned them. Such keeps me from being a thief. If we lived entirely on instinct we would shoplift whatever we wanted. We are obliged to find other ways to survive.
Quote:As you say, each individual in a society is not an unthinking
automaton. He has free will to do what he wants. But the society as
a whole must act in the way specified by generational theory. That's
why I keep saying that major events are not determined by politicians,
who are just individuals with free will. Major events are determined
by entire populations, entire generations, that must act according to
the generational waves specified by generational theory.
Tsk tsk. As usual, I'm the only person in this generational theory
forum who actually considers generational theory to be valid.
I am reminded of a statement of a British historian who debunked the myth of Nazi efficiency. The only thing at which the nazis were better at was mass murder, and only because the British didn't do it.
I am satisfied that the British would have done mass murder very well during World War II had they tried. But they didn't. (There was a famine in Bengal, but because the usual source of much of its rice -- Burma -- was cut off, and I am not going to call the British air raids on the Third Reich murder). So how does Generational Dynamics explain why the Nazis herded people into shooting pits and gas chambers and the British and Americans didn't?
There is a better explanation: authoritarian and especially totalitarian regimes are prone to killing people because they can promote hatred without ethical constraints and can keep their dirtiest deeds (such as genocide and persecution) secret. They can render anyone who puts his ethical values above the dictates of a despot or tyrant completely helpless -- and what could be more helpless than "dead"?
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
