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I found the article fascinating because it 'resonates' with my own personal truth. I don't have the math background or a big enough brain to hold so many ideas

I found the article fascinating because it 'resonates' with my own personal truth. I don't have the math background or a big enough brain to hold so many ideas, and equations, and relationships between all three, to come up with any kind of scientific explanation for why I believe what I believe. The author seems to have it though. Classic thinkers like Aristotle could still arrive at something that is true unto itself, without bringing in physics. Any useful discussion between two entities must begin from some common knowledge: and because you have personal experience, you have knowledge, and therefore some idea of what is true. Dirac says we should look for beauty in math: he didn't ever provide an explanation for why, just that it seems proper and something Mathematicians know only through experience. Philosophy is at the heart of truth. We should argue against the author's theories. I can't, but I also won't dismiss his ideas just because it feels bad. Using Aristotle's deductive reasoning, I also believe we exist within a black hole. By examining intelligence and time: we can arrive at a conclusion that intelligence arises from observation if order that unfolds into chaos. And anything intelligent, anything able to notice the unfolding must itself resist chaos through localized order: intelligence. We are the universe observing itself. Intelligence and imagination allows us to predict future events. I believe we all would make the exact same choices if we lived the exact same experiences in the same bodies. This makes me feel strangely connected, and keeps me more open-minded.

idiotsecant 16d ago
Philosophy is how you come to determine that everything is made of different proportions of air earth water fire and aether. The physics are essential or it's just navel gazing. You may as well just have a 'personal truth' (what a gross term) about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.
- itsalwaysgood 16d ago
  Not really. We use -logy to mean science or study of something. Philosophy with no other prefix is study of the Self, in a general sense, because Knowledge is a personal thing. Science and Religion is a common division among intelligent beings. Sometimes they move forward differently in our minds singularly, and collectively. You can accept truths like learning, knowledge, roles, collective intelligence, etc., and all the depth of the Science that goes with it, and still use those ideas at a high level in order to to predict future events, to do something 'useful'. Google just posted a white paper about RSI 'dreaming'. You take some super complex thing and reduce it within the scope of something bigger. Then you let an observer (self) recursively pick and choose the reduced scopes (like steps in a plan), and by observation of outcomes, pick the 'better path' for the future. It's like dreaming and reflection, considering past and future, and then choosing to learn in a direction that helps you change the future. By picking and choosing in this way: you can learn and grow into shapes that help you predict the future again and again, to persist. It's a loop within a loop, and that's neat to me (Cybernetics comes to mind). And so the author's idea tugs at me, because if we really do live in a Black Hole, what's at the end? A spikey but supremely ordered state, yet still a Singularity. What's at the beginning of the Big Bang? Also a Singularity, but extremely smooth. What's in the 'singularity' that is our moment right now: just our minds. The only thing that comes to mind is the 'you', the collective experience that defines your moment. If you loosely connect the idea of a Big Bang being the beginning, and a Black hole being the end: At one end: a single idea (low entropy, smooth ordered state: only on predictable event comes next, expansion), at another, many (high entropy, many predictable states if you consider the start, but always the same ending). Intelligence is about predicting the state of one moment to the other, in order to do something useful about the future. There's discussions and disruptions in Mathematics about: what makes a 'valid' Math proof? Do we accept only Human understanding, or Machines? Right now we've accepted Human only. The only way it matters, is if the discovery of proof is useful to someone or something. Imagine an AI proofs out this author's work: If every single AI agreed, would you accept it? Or is AI actually a waste of 'Time' and we should stop using it. Is there beauty in Logic the way Dirac looks at Math? As it is, we're waiting on some Humans to dig through Math and proof out and 'understand' in some areas, but not in others. We measure the utility of AI: how much time does it save, which means it's a very personal measure. When it comes time to do this exercise where Science and Religion meet: we don't know if we should 'trust' an AI's understanding of Math over our own. We measure its utility differently in some areas than others...and so it becomes a very personal subject and is my 'stuff' to believe. My personal truth, as gross as it is. My 'shit to believe'. To end this argument on a spiritual note that is also grounded in personal truth: consider loops once again. And this time, probably the most important agent, the outer loop that matters most: Your beginning, and your ending. Your moment, is a collection of choices you make based on your own personal observation. Whatever you believe: prepare for your own ending properly. Criticize when you feel it's proper, and help, when you see fit. Your choices.
tekla 16d ago
> Using Aristotle's deductive reasoning, I also believe we exist within a black hole. Wut
- itsalwaysgood 16d ago
  Glossing over everything, but either you feel Descarte's 'I think, therefore I am', or you don't. Singularities are interesting 'moments': places where timelines converge. One of these seems to exist at the 'Big Bang', and one seems to exist at the center of a 'Black Hole'. This man's 'math' suggests we live in a black hole.
nonameiguess 16d ago
I'm a huge fan of Aristotle. He's more or less the founding father of all western intellectual tradition. But he believed things like continuous force is necessary to keep an object in motion and object released from a rotational anchor would move perpendicular to the rotation's tangent. Beware any non-experimental version of science that relies entirely upon deducing what seems obvious to you from first principles. Even with strong math behind it, you get things like zero point energy density computed from quantum mechanics being off by triple-digit orders of magnitude from the true observed value, often called the worst prediction in the history of physics. Only reality, not your mind, holds truth. There is no "personal" truth, aside from true statements regarding your own feelings, beliefs, and other indicators of purely subjective internal state.
- itsalwaysgood 16d ago
  'A person is many things: some things are useful. And usefulness can apply to ourselves, or to others.' I choose deductive reasoning from Aristotle and apply it to my own experience to reach my own conclusions. But you're right, he believed many things that turned out not to be true, and it reduces his credentials and should lessen how much belief I give to his ideas. Was the opening idea I left there 'useful' to you? I have no idea, it was useful to me. But, if the tool is extremely useful, and feels elegant, perhaps there is some 'truth' to the tool itself and it should be considered carefully.... Someone literally posted an article about Dirac and 'beautiful math' here the other day. He suggested Einstein's special relativity persists today and spread because the idea was beautiful, and sake of beauty itself helped it to spread and be more 'true'. Is this proper? I don't know.

idiotsecant 16d ago

Philosophy is how you come to determine that everything is made of different proportions of air earth water fire and aether. The physics are essential or it's just navel gazing. You may as well just have a 'personal truth' (what a gross term) about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

itsalwaysgood 16d ago
Not really. We use -logy to mean science or study of something. Philosophy with no other prefix is study of the Self, in a general sense, because Knowledge is a personal thing. Science and Religion is a common division among intelligent beings. Sometimes they move forward differently in our minds singularly, and collectively. You can accept truths like learning, knowledge, roles, collective intelligence, etc., and all the depth of the Science that goes with it, and still use those ideas at a high level in order to to predict future events, to do something 'useful'. Google just posted a white paper about RSI 'dreaming'. You take some super complex thing and reduce it within the scope of something bigger. Then you let an observer (self) recursively pick and choose the reduced scopes (like steps in a plan), and by observation of outcomes, pick the 'better path' for the future. It's like dreaming and reflection, considering past and future, and then choosing to learn in a direction that helps you change the future. By picking and choosing in this way: you can learn and grow into shapes that help you predict the future again and again, to persist. It's a loop within a loop, and that's neat to me (Cybernetics comes to mind). And so the author's idea tugs at me, because if we really do live in a Black Hole, what's at the end? A spikey but supremely ordered state, yet still a Singularity. What's at the beginning of the Big Bang? Also a Singularity, but extremely smooth. What's in the 'singularity' that is our moment right now: just our minds. The only thing that comes to mind is the 'you', the collective experience that defines your moment. If you loosely connect the idea of a Big Bang being the beginning, and a Black hole being the end: At one end: a single idea (low entropy, smooth ordered state: only on predictable event comes next, expansion), at another, many (high entropy, many predictable states if you consider the start, but always the same ending). Intelligence is about predicting the state of one moment to the other, in order to do something useful about the future. There's discussions and disruptions in Mathematics about: what makes a 'valid' Math proof? Do we accept only Human understanding, or Machines? Right now we've accepted Human only. The only way it matters, is if the discovery of proof is useful to someone or something. Imagine an AI proofs out this author's work: If every single AI agreed, would you accept it? Or is AI actually a waste of 'Time' and we should stop using it. Is there beauty in Logic the way Dirac looks at Math? As it is, we're waiting on some Humans to dig through Math and proof out and 'understand' in some areas, but not in others. We measure the utility of AI: how much time does it save, which means it's a very personal measure. When it comes time to do this exercise where Science and Religion meet: we don't know if we should 'trust' an AI's understanding of Math over our own. We measure its utility differently in some areas than others...and so it becomes a very personal subject and is my 'stuff' to believe. My personal truth, as gross as it is. My 'shit to believe'. To end this argument on a spiritual note that is also grounded in personal truth: consider loops once again. And this time, probably the most important agent, the outer loop that matters most: Your beginning, and your ending. Your moment, is a collection of choices you make based on your own personal observation. Whatever you believe: prepare for your own ending properly. Criticize when you feel it's proper, and help, when you see fit. Your choices.

tekla 16d ago

> Using Aristotle's deductive reasoning, I also believe we exist within a black hole. Wut

itsalwaysgood 16d ago
Glossing over everything, but either you feel Descarte's 'I think, therefore I am', or you don't. Singularities are interesting 'moments': places where timelines converge. One of these seems to exist at the 'Big Bang', and one seems to exist at the center of a 'Black Hole'. This man's 'math' suggests we live in a black hole.

nonameiguess 16d ago

I'm a huge fan of Aristotle. He's more or less the founding father of all western intellectual tradition. But he believed things like continuous force is necessary to keep an object in motion and object released from a rotational anchor would move perpendicular to the rotation's tangent. Beware any non-experimental version of science that relies entirely upon deducing what seems obvious to you from first principles. Even with strong math behind it, you get things like zero point energy density computed from quantum mechanics being off by triple-digit orders of magnitude from the true observed value, often called the worst prediction in the history of physics. Only reality, not your mind, holds truth. There is no "personal" truth, aside from true statements regarding your own feelings, beliefs, and other indicators of purely subjective internal state.

itsalwaysgood 16d ago
'A person is many things: some things are useful. And usefulness can apply to ourselves, or to others.' I choose deductive reasoning from Aristotle and apply it to my own experience to reach my own conclusions. But you're right, he believed many things that turned out not to be true, and it reduces his credentials and should lessen how much belief I give to his ideas. Was the opening idea I left there 'useful' to you? I have no idea, it was useful to me. But, if the tool is extremely useful, and feels elegant, perhaps there is some 'truth' to the tool itself and it should be considered carefully.... Someone literally posted an article about Dirac and 'beautiful math' here the other day. He suggested Einstein's special relativity persists today and spread because the idea was beautiful, and sake of beauty itself helped it to spread and be more 'true'. Is this proper? I don't know.