thanks, that brought back a conversation I had with him on this topic. It has to do with frames of reference being relative. Absent a universal constant frame of reference, you cannot ask "from whence" or "where to" in any meaningful way.
davew On Mon, Mar 30, 2020, at 12:44 PM, Frank Wimberly wrote: > Cosmology: globally speaking, everything is moving away from everything else. > I asked Hywel can't you extrapolate backwards and determine the location of > the "big bang". He said, "You're not allowed to ask that question". Is/was he > an anti-realist? > > --- > Frank C. Wimberly > 505 670-9918 > Santa Fe, NM > > On Mon, Mar 30, 2020, 12:25 PM Prof David West <profw...@fastmail.fm> wrote: >> After two weeks in isolation in Holland, I returned to the U.S. Friday for >> two more weeks of isolation on the mountain in Utah. Because of possible >> exposure while traveling will get tested tomorrow or Wednesday - give the >> bug a chance to become detectable. Still convinced there is far less to fear >> from the disease than from civil unrest and/or loss of liberty. >> >> In the absence of external stimuli, lots of questions on different subjects >> came to the fore along with the impulse to inflict them on the group, >> perhaps as a bit of distraction from more serious matters. >> >> Covid related: >> 1. Given patient zero as a Pangolin seller/buyer/consumer and >> Pangolin-zero, what conditions must be satisfied to ensure a >> species-to-species jump? >> a- mutation in the virus in Pangolin-zero? >> b- mutation in patient-zero that made him uniquely susceptible? >> c- first time a Pangolin sneezed in the face of a human, or first time a >> human licked Pangolin scales? >> >> 2- Numbers I would like to see: >> a. total tested - TT >> b. percent of TT that were positive TP or negative TN >> c. percent of TT that are one-percenters >> d. percent of TT that are in top 20th percentile in terms of money, power >> (e.g. politicians), fame (e.g. entertainers, athletes) >> e. percent of TT that are front-line personnel >> f. percent of TT that are "middle class" >> g. percent of TT that are poor >> h. percent of TT that are illegal, homeless, etc. >> i. percent of TP that were asymptomatic >> j. percent of TP that required little or no treatment >> k. percent of TP that could be treated with OTC or off-label meds >> l. percent of TP that required outpatient treatment plus emerging medication >> m. percent of TP that required hospitalization and serious treatment, e.g. >> ventilators >> n. percent of TP that died - by age and degree of underlying causes >> o. transmissions per infected TPI >> p. percent of TPI to others within one-degree of distance (e.g. family, >> close friends) >> q. percent of TPI to others within two-degrees of distance (e.g. >> classmates, spring breakers, neighbors) >> r. percent of TPI to others within three-degrees of distance (e.g. >> supermarkets, fellow train commuters) >> s. percent of TPI to others within four-degrees of distance (strangers in >> the casino, at the concert, at restaurants) >> >> Philosophy of Science >> 1. Lee Smolin talks about a schism with regard the nature of science >> grounded in a disagreement about the nature of Reality — realists and >> anti-realists. >> 2. Realists assert that there is a natural world existing independently of >> our minds and properties of that that Reality can be comprehended and >> described. Anti-Realists would deny one or both of those assertions. >> 3. Most scientists are Realists, excepting the case of quantum mechanics, >> where anti-realists dominate. >> 4. Some Anti-Realists assert that properties ascribed to elementary >> particles are created by our interactions with them and exist only at the >> time of measurement. >> 5. Other Anti-Realists assert that science as a whole does not deal in or >> talk about the nature of Reality, but only about our knowledge of that >> world; e.g. quantum epistemology. >> 6. Operationalists are agnostic about Reality and just want to calculate. >> 7. I assume that Peirce would be an anti-Realist. Would he be a quantum >> epistemologist? Or, some other variant of the categories Smolin describes? >> Or, something totally different? Of course Peirce could not be a quantum >> epistemologist, per se, but he does seem to assert a similar anti-Realist >> position with regard macro-phenomenon where most scientists are Realists. >> >> Cosmology: >> 1. why geocentric expansion - why is everything moving away from us? >> 2. why can we not detect where we are going? what direction are we >> expanding into? >> >> Quantum Physics >> 1. both pilot-wave and many-worlds interpretations lead to a need for >> either many worlds or ghost waves to deal with superposition "residue" once >> an observation has been made and a particle at a specific place exists. >> Wheeler's, It from Bit, interpretation bases everything on information. >> 2. What if the many worlds / ghost waves were simply erased when a >> measurement was made and the wave collapsed to a particle. We know that >> erasure costs energy. So observation would consume some tiny bit of energy >> from the Universe and increase the mass of the Universe by the mass of the >> particle. >> 3. Would this lead to a change, over eons of time of course, in the Hubble >> constant because there was more mass to slow down expansion and less energy >> to fuel it? >> 4. Could this change account for the problems people have coming up with a >> consistent measure of the Hubble constant. >> >> Off-the-Wall >> 1. Vedic physics posited five elements — the same four that Aristotle >> asserted much later, i.e. air, earth, fire and water plus consciousness. >> 2. Would it be possible to do some kind of parallel evolution of physics >> from Aristotle to Einstein using the Vedic five elements instead of >> Aristotle's four. What might that physics look like, what would the >> consciousness factor look like, how would a value/variable/constant for it >> look like in equations? E.g. E+consc = MC squared? >> 3. is there a way to map consciousness to information and via that path >> come to an account for Dark Energy, Dark Matter? >> >> Incipient Nonsense >> 1. Assume pervasive consciousness in matter, ala Vedic cosmology; is >> "consciousness" translate/equate in some fashion to observation? One way to >> think of observation is simply awareness/being conscious of. >> 2. If so, can the consciousness of elementary/quantum particles be summed >> when those particles become parts of an aggregate structure? >> 3. Is there a threshold, like the formation of an atom, or a molecule, >> where the sum of consciousness ensures that every particle participating is >> "observed" by consciousness if not by a physicist or instrument. >> 4. Could this account for the fact that macro phenomenon like physicists, >> cats, and instruments cannot participate in superposition? >> >> A Galaxy Far Far Away >> 1. Assuming the Vedic-Quantum-Consciousness stuff, could we calculate the >> amount of consciousness-observations necessary to yield the macro structure >> of Universe? >> 2. If you could obtain such a number, could you somehow differentiate, and >> measure, the amount of consciousness-observation available from the >> non-sentient mass of the universe and that of sentient-observation >> contribution? >> 3. If yes, could you then take the amount of sentient-observation required, >> deduct some amount contributed by human-sentient-observation and any >> leftover would indicate the number of non-human sentient observers must be >> lurking around? >> >> And Nick, no these are not the result of drugs, just my overactive >> imagination and the fact that I read four different books on quantum >> physics, Jung's Red Book, and DMT Dialogues the past week. >> >> davew >> >> >> ============================================================ >> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv >> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College >> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com >> archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ >> FRIAM-COMIC <http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/FRIAM-COMIC> >> http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove >
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
