Journal Zarf's Journal: Sophistry tomorrow, comedy tonight! 6
So I keep wondering if I'm advancing in my knowledge and understanding or if I'm essentially whacking off. I mean, what's the difference between philosophy and whacking off anyhow? When you philosophize you're essentially self-stimulating your noodle and enjoying it. When you whack off you're...
I mean what the fsck is the point anyhow? Solipsism. New word I learned. It's one of those "ISM" words so that means it's prime to stick in your wisdom generator. Stick with me there is a point.
The idea that you and your internal universe are the only thing(s) that you can truly "know" isn't a novel idea. I've heard this one before. It makes a quantum mechanically disturbing sense. How do you know you are right?
The most dangerous kind of man is the one who thinks he is right.
Damn, Gödel. He's got us in a logical head-lock. Since, any logical system we might make to represent the universe must contain a representation of itself... we get stuck in infinite unending recursions... or we get stuck with only partial systems... or we get stuck with illogical systems. The universe is pretty damn illogical isn't it?
And then the same guy gives us that funky Gödel encoding trick.
Using the new vogue hypothesis of computational equivalence, we can assume that if you can represent it computationally you can treat the event as a computation. Therefore we see the universe as a giant computer or a massive computation... after a fashion. The step from the merely computable to computational equivalence is a small but difficult step. Once you've made it the universe looks like a simulation of itself.
If the universe is a computation or is computationally representable, then it can be represented as a Turing machine. If you have a Turing machine you can encode it with Gödel's prime number encoding scheme which results in a single number representing the Turing machine.
So the universe is a number.
All numerical computation, linguistic transduction, and string transformations are computationally interchangeable. Language is math, math is string manipulation, string manipulation is thought, numbers are strings, the universe is a number, the universe is a word and by implication, the universe is a thought.
But, you can't "know" if any of that is right can you? Since to "know" if that chain of logic works you'd have to beable create a model of the universe. It is completely impossible to simulate the whole universe. Business about electrons in the universe and total number of bits... blah, blah.
If Gödel is right, then you can't even hold a model of yourself inside yourself. Self examination would produce insightful partial images of the whole self and your complete picture of self is either incomplete or illogical.
So, you can't even know yourself.
It is possible, however, to construct a model of a completely separate and lesser system with in a greater system. A dozen minds could in concert create a model of a single mind that is both self-consistant and logical. A really friggin' big super computer could model an atomic explosion provided it was so damn big it had more bits than the actual thing took up in the actual computational universe.
So this big Gödel number that represents the Turing machine that represents the Universe is kind of like Douglas Adam's "42" or "the question." "What question?" "The question of Life, The Universe, and Everything!" You can know the answer but not the question, or the question but not the answer. We could concievably possess "the number" representing the Universe but we would have no means for decoding it... or we would be unable to physically decode it... or we would be unable to make sense of it.
Eh, maybe I'm just whacking off. Oh! I think I finally understand "Hitch-hiker's Guide"!!! And I didn't even realise I didn't understand it! Crap! Mental Orgasm!
Update: I found a good link here: Godel's Incompleteness Theorem that explains what I'm driving so hard at and getting nowhere with.
BTW: I reget the last paragraph now but from a strange sense of purist vice I am going to leave it alone.
I mean what the fsck is the point anyhow? Solipsism. New word I learned. It's one of those "ISM" words so that means it's prime to stick in your wisdom generator. Stick with me there is a point.
The idea that you and your internal universe are the only thing(s) that you can truly "know" isn't a novel idea. I've heard this one before. It makes a quantum mechanically disturbing sense. How do you know you are right?
The most dangerous kind of man is the one who thinks he is right.
Damn, Gödel. He's got us in a logical head-lock. Since, any logical system we might make to represent the universe must contain a representation of itself... we get stuck in infinite unending recursions... or we get stuck with only partial systems... or we get stuck with illogical systems. The universe is pretty damn illogical isn't it?
And then the same guy gives us that funky Gödel encoding trick.
Using the new vogue hypothesis of computational equivalence, we can assume that if you can represent it computationally you can treat the event as a computation. Therefore we see the universe as a giant computer or a massive computation... after a fashion. The step from the merely computable to computational equivalence is a small but difficult step. Once you've made it the universe looks like a simulation of itself.
If the universe is a computation or is computationally representable, then it can be represented as a Turing machine. If you have a Turing machine you can encode it with Gödel's prime number encoding scheme which results in a single number representing the Turing machine.
So the universe is a number.
All numerical computation, linguistic transduction, and string transformations are computationally interchangeable. Language is math, math is string manipulation, string manipulation is thought, numbers are strings, the universe is a number, the universe is a word and by implication, the universe is a thought.
But, you can't "know" if any of that is right can you? Since to "know" if that chain of logic works you'd have to beable create a model of the universe. It is completely impossible to simulate the whole universe. Business about electrons in the universe and total number of bits... blah, blah.
If Gödel is right, then you can't even hold a model of yourself inside yourself. Self examination would produce insightful partial images of the whole self and your complete picture of self is either incomplete or illogical.
So, you can't even know yourself.
It is possible, however, to construct a model of a completely separate and lesser system with in a greater system. A dozen minds could in concert create a model of a single mind that is both self-consistant and logical. A really friggin' big super computer could model an atomic explosion provided it was so damn big it had more bits than the actual thing took up in the actual computational universe.
So this big Gödel number that represents the Turing machine that represents the Universe is kind of like Douglas Adam's "42" or "the question." "What question?" "The question of Life, The Universe, and Everything!" You can know the answer but not the question, or the question but not the answer. We could concievably possess "the number" representing the Universe but we would have no means for decoding it... or we would be unable to physically decode it... or we would be unable to make sense of it.
Eh, maybe I'm just whacking off. Oh! I think I finally understand "Hitch-hiker's Guide"!!! And I didn't even realise I didn't understand it! Crap! Mental Orgasm!
Update: I found a good link here: Godel's Incompleteness Theorem that explains what I'm driving so hard at and getting nowhere with.
BTW: I reget the last paragraph now but from a strange sense of purist vice I am going to leave it alone.
another thought (Score:2)
This is not a sentence.
all that sentence proves to me is that people can tell lies. there are an infinite number of statements that can be made in natural language that have correct syntax but make no sense. however, i do feel truth in the theory that things not proveable. almost all theories rely on axioms. in that way math is exactly like philosophy in that you cannot prove anything without accepting something considered obvious but not proveable. the proof of these obvious things is part of how we define them.
or maybe 10:00 is still too early for me to try to do any real thinking.
Re:another thought (Score:2)
Spoon, no Spoon. Can't prove* either one.
* Although here I use prove in the mathematical sense it is possible to provide proof in a practical sense. "No spoon huh? Whack! Feel that spoon did you?"
Idea.. (Score:2)
So, you can't even know yourself.
I think the conflict here is you are examining in real time. Take a snapshot, something that is static and unchanging. Build a model of that in your current space (current time) of a model that was in existence say.. 30 minutes ago.
It takes an incredible amount of objective thought, and a sharp memory. I believe it can be done. Then, you form a delta between when the model was finished, when the snapshot was taken and current time. There will always be a latency, but that is what sleepless nights are for.
Re:Idea.. (Score:2)
A Complete Model (Score:2)
If you can't create a complete model of the universe because of what amounts to size constraints, could it be possible with lossless compression?
If you can model the entire universe in less "space" than the universe itself, would you have improved upon the design, or merely subjected it to a more complex interpreter?
It requires the view that the universe is externally executed, that something lies beyond it. Of course, it's a different story to store everything externally.
I should stop now, I think.
Re:A Complete Model (Score:2)
Bingo.
If you do that (and I've thought of this idea too) then you have what amounts to "42" and no idea what the question is. You need the "decompression" algorithm to make sense of the compressed universe. The unproven bits we have to play with are: Would the decompression and compressed archive beable to co-exist within size constraints? Would they be "meaningful" without "execution"??
I wonder if there is a nifty size versus time trade-off that you could play. Heh heh. Just like the real universe only five times slower! *LOL*