Is there evidence of " Cleverness " in Nature and it's processes ?

[Mike Smith Cosmos]

Yes I'm here along with the flowers and y'all, and no I don't need the salts. Just because I see no evidence -or need to look for- your wholy graily does not mean I have no appreciation for nature's patterns. Nor does it mean I don't investigate said patterns. Maybe I just have more knowledge/experience of/for what is and is not a windmill and what does and does not justify a good tilting.I don't suppose either of you in your fervors have bothered to look into the strange loops I have mentioned. Well, I'll try & lead you thirsty gents to some water one more time. Drink or not as you please.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strange_loopNow if you actually visit the link, that would be but a sip and there is no rehydrating save for getting the book and reading it all. I admit I don't care for a lot of Dougy's sentimentalities any more than yours, but as I said earlier he is at least on solid mathematical grounds. To arms!!

Just read your ref. about the strange loops.

 

Sounds a little bit like " pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps. " which used to fascinate me as a boy , ' why can I not pick myself , up ? ' .

 

Interesting ! I am surprised that you like it . As you do not seem to like , some of my speculative ideas.

 

I , have never been embarrassed to say " what if ? ". Even if it often proves WRONG. As without ever 'trying the what if ' One could miss out on a possible good idea , that would otherwise get overlooked , for fear of sounding stupid or misinformed!

 

However, it seems to raise your 'ire ' if that is the right word. Not trying to offend. Just eager to make some form of progress.

 

I should never have offered the smelling salts !

 

Here look at this interesting pattern I saw on the same rock face yesterday/ today !

 

Some life getting together !

 

Pic :-

 

 

Mike

 

Ps. I think clinging to maths , as the absolute ingredient for progress 'might ' keep Us grounded. As if the maths is not yet uncovered or is not actually required for a particular , phenomenon . Then by seeking something ,that will never be found , could be a miss step.

 

Studiot has just highlighted to me a particular illustration of where maths was not ALL

 

Link :-

 

http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/82082-sound-question/

.

Edited March 11, 2014 by Mike Smith Cosmos

[Acme]

Just read your ref. about the strange loops.

 

Sounds a little bit like " pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps. " which used to fascinate me as a boy , ' why can I not pick myself , up ? ' .

 

Interesting ! I am surprised that you like it . As you do not seem to like , some of my speculative ideas.

 

I , have never been embarrassed to say " what if ? ". Even if it often proves WRONG. As without ever 'trying the what if ' One could miss out on a possible good idea , that would otherwise get overlooked , for fear of sounding stupid or misinformed!

 

However, it seems to raise your 'ire ' if that is the right word. Not trying to offend. Just eager to make some form of progress.

 

I should never have offered the smelling salts !

 

Here look at this interesting pattern I saw on the same rock face yesterday/ today !

 

Some life getting together !

 

Pic :-

 

Mike

I think you just blew me off. IOW you have no intention of reading Hofstadter. Oui/no? Exactly how then do you propose to pass judgment on whether or not he has anything to say that bears on your issues, or that I was on topic by invoking him? Honest ignorance I can deal with, but willful ignorance I have little patience for. Perhaps TAR will fare better.

[Mike Smith Cosmos]

I think you just blew me off. IOW you have no intention of reading Hofstadter. Oui/no? Exactly how then do you propose to pass judgment on whether or not he has anything to say that bears on your issues, or that I was on topic by invoking him? Honest ignorance I can deal with, but willful ignorance I have little patience for. Perhaps TAR will fare better.

Don't get all up tight!

I just thoroughly read your sitation about hofstead. I thought about it . I don't happen to have the book . And kindly took your invitation to read it. Which sounds a good suggestion on your part.

 

When I have taken of the waters you kindly led me toward. I will get back to you. Give me chance! I have not even got out of bed yet . It's only 6 o'clock in the morning here , and I have taken the trouble to answer you , before I have got up. Pitty sake !

 

Here is studios link re maths not used to prove a point .

 

Link. http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/82082-sound-question/

 

------------------------------- -------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------- ----------

 

.An interim conclusion :-

We appear to have been, here on Earth :-

. ....... TERRAFORMED by some Innate Generative Process, [ One way or another ] .....All this as opposed to Entropy, which in its various capacities is always to one degree or another , utilizing energy to produce useful work, while at the same time putting some energy beyond immediate use, and creating some disorder in the process.

link :- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terraforming for terraforming

 

link :- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Introduction_to_entropy for Entropy

 

 

mike

Edited March 11, 2014 by Mike Smith Cosmos

[Acme]

Don't get all up tight!

I just thoroughly read your sitation about hofstead. I thought about it . I don't happen to have the book . And kindly took your invitation to read it. Which sounds a good suggestion on your part.

 

When I have taken of the waters you kindly led me toward. I will get back to you. Give me chance! I have not even got out of bed yet . It's only 6 o'clock in the morning here , and I have taken the trouble to answer you , before I have got up. Pitty sake !

You might have said as much when you first replied rather than making the seemingly dismissive comment about children's boots. It is not Hofstadter's ideas that I find overly sentimental; it's his stylistic asides. His ideas that I find appealing however are founded between the anvil of logic and the hammer of mathematics and well worth the wade through the extraneous goo.

 

Here is studios link re maths not used to prove a point .

 

Link. http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/82082-sound-question/

You are mistaken in your assessment of Studiot's comment there. It is not that math is not up to the task, rather that no one has put the time and computing power to work on the specific issue of bells ringing.

 

.An interim conclusion :-

 

link :- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terraforming for terraforming

 

link :- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Introduction_to_entropy for Entropy

 

mike

Posting a couple links does not a conclusion make.

[Mike Smith Cosmos]

Acme

 

I wish you stop keep taking offence, Where none is intended or meant. My mind genuinely went to my First 10 years of life , Lifting problem ,[ When I read the Link to Loftstead.,] it fired up my memories where I struggled to get my head around , why when running down a grass slope could I not put my hands between my legs, and pull like mad , and take off, as I ran down the grassy Slope ( clearly a miss spent youth,} So no offence meant. The only bit, a post or two ago, was about " revival salts " for you because of Tar and I's .way out speculations. But that was meant as a friends jest . I thought, after you started talking to me about ART we had bonded and become friends. { I hope so] . -- Now back to warring debate! --

 

 

My conclusion at this juncture, with the research to date so far, the observations made over the last few years, the thinking over the issues around Entropy and its Opposite Generation , the contribution of many of you chaps is :

..-------------TERRAFORM -------------------------

It becomes Clear that, irrelevant of the ultimate source , there appears to be drivers , innate ,that have brought about a Terraforming Process , in and about our Earth so as to bring us to the state we now find ourselves, with the environment and the life and the presence of Human conciousness.. I assume the word Terraform can cover all That

link :- http://en.wikipedia....ki/Terraforming for terraforming

link :- http://en.wikipedia....tion_to_entropy for Entropy

 

Mike

Edited March 11, 2014 by Mike Smith Cosmos

[Acme]

Acme

 

I wish you stop keep taking offence, Where none is intended or meant. My mind genuinely went to my First 10 years of life , Lifting problem ,[ When I read the Link to Loftstead.,] it fired up my memories where I struggled to get my head around , why when running down a grass slope could I not put my hands between my legs, and pull like mad , and take off, as I ran down the grassy Slope ( clearly a miss spent youth,} So no offence meant. The only bit, a post or two ago, was about " revival salts " for you because of Tar and I's .way out speculations. But that was meant as a friends jest . I thought, after you started talking to me about ART we had bonded and become friends. { I hope so] .

What is this 'friends' of which you speak? As to seeming offended I plead old age and early rising as is the fashion. If anything, you guys should want a sedative for me & not a stimulant.

 

-- Now back to warring debate! --

What?! No art first? No worries, I have you covered this time.

 

 

link :-

http://en.wikipedia....ki/Terraforming for terraforming

link :- http://en.wikipedia....tion_to_entropy for Entropy

 

Mike

 

Just because something appears to you to be purposefully done does not make it so.

self-organization: >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self_organization

 

 

Self-organization is a process where some form of global order or coordination arises out of the local interactions between the components of an initially disordered system. This process is spontaneous: it is not directed or controlled by any agent or subsystem inside or outside of the system; however, the laws followed by the process and its initial conditions may have been chosen or caused by an agent. It is often triggered by random fluctuations that are amplified by positive feedback. The resulting organization is wholly decentralized or distributed over all the components of the system. As such it is typically very robust and able to survive and self-repair substantial damage or perturbations. In chaos theory it is discussed in terms of islands of predictability in a sea of chaotic unpredictability.

 

Self-organization occurs in a variety of physical, chemical, biological, social and cognitive systems. Common examples are crystallization, the emergence of convection patterns in a liquid heated from below, chemical oscillators, swarming in groups of animals, and the way neural networks learn to recognize complex patterns. ...

Right then...some of my art. Let's see...something in an abstract of wandering wondering.

[tar]

Acme,

 

My math capabilities seem to have passed me by sometime in that 12 to 24 year old range, when ones math skills are said to be at their peak. Its a language I find a bit perplexing in that you can't understand it unless you can conceive of the notion, and if you can conceive of the notion, writing it down in arbitrary symbols that stand for this or that does not seem to aid the notion for me, but to restrict it and simplify it and abbreviate it, until its unrecognizable to me, as the notion.

 

I from time to time would argue with my calculus professors over limits and the size of integrals required for a particular job because I was always looking for math to tell me something I did not already know, and not require me to already know a thing and then describe it in the function. Was rather disappointed to find out, that after taking all sorts of measurements and making all sorts of estimates and arbitrary approximations and running a bunch of equations together, that if you did it right, you could come up with a close approximation of the volume of a standardardly curvy three dimensional thing. Seemed easier to just build the shell of the thing, fill it with water and then pour the water into liter beakers and see how much it could hold. A system and solution that would be more efficient and accurate especially when the objects curves and dips an crevices were not standard.

 

So I am a little like Mike. The Maths are fine, they do the job, but they are not required to have an notion, they are more an after the fact, detailed description of something you already know, that you put in terms someone else who knows the language, will understand. To communicate your notion, not to discover anything. That, combined with the fact that I have books already started and not finished, and the fact that your author seems on the sentimental side to me as well, leads me to pass on the need to read his mathematical basis for believing in something that is already apparent to me. (in general)

 

I am of the opinion that the truth will remain the truth, whether I know about or not, and whether someone has an equation for it or not. Equations tend to be simplifications that don't really tell you anything about the intricacies and reasons of a thing. An equation is more of a model of the thing than the thing, and you might be able to manipulate the model in a certain way, that works in the model, but would not work in the thing.

 

So you might be able to put a metric to skewedness in a solidly, backed by proven statistical methods, probability theory, and chaos theory manner, but in the end it is still talking about that about the universe, that operates in Mike's "toward progressive change" in the feedback loop way he has had the notion with which he started the thread.

 

I can do without the God requirement, and the sentimentality as well, and require that Mike provide us with the metrics that he is measuring things in, so that we understand what he is talking about, that we can try out ourselves and place similar things viewed from similar starting points, on the same scale from the same perspective on the same graph, but I am already confident that we will find reasons and explanations for the emergence of Suns and stars and life and snowflakes and great attractors and such, without magic and Gods, because all those things are here, as are we, modeling and sensing the stuff, so there MUST be an explanation, and the God of the Bible is not it, and magic pixies did not do it. We had to have pulled ourselves up, by our own bootstraps, its only the mechanisms we need to notice and embrace, and describe to each other.

 

Regards, TAR

[Acme]

Acme,

 

 

My math capabilities seem to have passed me by sometime in that 12 to 24 year old range, when ones math skills are said to be at their peak. Its a language I find a bit perplexing in that you can't understand it unless you can conceive of the notion, and if you can conceive of the notion, writing it down in arbitrary symbols that stand for this or that does not seem to aid the notion for me, but to restrict it and simplify it and abbreviate it, until its unrecognizable to me, as the notion.

 

I from time to time would argue with my calculus professors over limits and the size of integrals required for a particular job because I was always looking for math to tell me something I did not already know, and not require me to already know a thing and then describe it in the function. Was rather disappointed to find out, that after taking all sorts of measurements and making all sorts of estimates and arbitrary approximations and running a bunch of equations together, that if you did it right, you could come up with a close approximation of the volume of a standardardly curvy three dimensional thing. Seemed easier to just build the shell of the thing, fill it with water and then pour the water into liter beakers and see how much it could hold. A system and solution that would be more efficient and accurate especially when the objects curves and dips an crevices were not standard.

 

So I am a little like Mike. The Maths are fine, they do the job, but they are not required to have an notion, they are more an after the fact, detailed description of something you already know, that you put in terms someone else who knows the language, will understand. To communicate your notion, not to discover anything. That, combined with the fact that I have books already started and not finished, and the fact that your author seems on the sentimental side to me as well, leads me to pass on the need to read his mathematical basis for believing in something that is already apparent to me. (in general)

 

I am of the opinion that the truth will remain the truth, whether I know about or not, and whether someone has an equation for it or not. Equations tend to be simplifications that don't really tell you anything about the intricacies and reasons of a thing. An equation is more of a model of the thing than the thing, and you might be able to manipulate the model in a certain way, that works in the model, but would not work in the thing.

 

So you might be able to put a metric to skewedness in a solidly, backed by proven statistical methods, probability theory, and chaos theory manner, but in the end it is still talking about that about the universe, that operates in Mike's "toward progressive change" in the feedback loop way he has had the notion with which he started the thread.

 

I can do without the God requirement, and the sentimentality as well, and require that Mike provide us with the metrics that he is measuring things in, so that we understand what he is talking about, that we can try out ourselves and place similar things viewed from similar starting points, on the same scale from the same perspective on the same graph, but I am already confident that we will find reasons and explanations for the emergence of Suns and stars and life and snowflakes and great attractors and such, without magic and Gods, because all those things are here, as are we, modeling and sensing the stuff, so there MUST be an explanation, and the God of the Bible is not it, and magic pixies did not do it. We had to have pulled ourselves up, by our own bootstraps, its only the mechanisms we need to notice and embrace, and describe to each other.

 

 

Regards, TAR

I only hid all that to conserve space and simplify a response. Acknowledge all you wrote. On Hofstadter's I Am A Strange Loop, he purposefully tried to make it accessible to lay persons and if I can wade through the sentimental goo you may have it in you to paddle over the math goo. I think it's a worthwhile read whether or not you think it applies here as I have suggested.

 

While the calculus was never my forte when it came to doing the calculations, I did & do appreciate its applicability. Contrary to what you say about math only describing, it does have extremely powerful predictive power. For example black holes are a prediction predicated on the calculus. Anyway, just as you may not know how your fuel injectors work and so entrust your engine to trained mechanics, you should also trust that trained mathematicians know what they are doing with your Universe.

 

As an interesting side-note, before going in for philosophy Hofstadter started as a math major years ago and created a theoretical fractal map of the behavior of electrons in a magnetic field. Just recently it was confirmed by observation. >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hofstadter's_butterfly

 

To the rest of your reply I think my last post giving a link and description of self-organization covers my take. Let me know if I missed something.

 

Regards,

Acme

 

PS Some art for art's sake.

[Mike Smith Cosmos]

I only hid all that to conserve space and simplify a response. Acknowledge all you wrote. On Hofstadter's I Am A Strange Loop, he purposefully tried to make it accessible to lay persons and if I can wade through the sentimental goo you may have it in you to paddle over the math goo. I think it's a worthwhile read whether or not you think it applies here as I have suggested.While the calculus was never my forte when it came to doing the calculations, I did & do appreciate its applicability. Contrary to what you say about math only describing, it does have extremely powerful predictive power. For example black holes are a prediction predicated on the calculus. Anyway, just as you may not know how your fuel injectors work and so entrust your engine to trained mechanics, you should also trust that trained mathematicians know what they are doing with your Universe.As an interesting side-note, before going in for philosophy Hofstadter started as a math major years ago and created a theoretical fractal map of the behavior of electrons in a magnetic field. Just recently it was confirmed by observation. >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hofstadter's_butterflyTo the rest of your reply I think my last post giving a link and description of self-organization covers my take. Let me know if I missed something.Regards,AcmePS Some art for art's sake.

This is what I am painting today ACME, THIS IS A PENCIL AND COLOURED PENCIL DRAWING , THAT I DID SEVERAL YEARS AGO. Oops ! Caps lock on ! I am outside our cafe, on the pavement painting, or attempting to paint , .

It was while I was studying up complexity, right up your street ACME. It was to try to illustrate, symmetry breaking and the delicate junction as a phased transition exposes a highly creative, generative zone. If you look carefully you can just make out some generative items appearing in the calm , sensitive area between the two edges.

 

 

Notice the similarity. To this photo I took this morning while walking the dog by the local stream . Nature seems to take advantage of these sheltered areas .

 

Mike

 

The painting I am going to do now, will be brighter and in acrylics and possibly more abstract. Oops a bird just s... On my I.pad . I am just sending this to you. And tar and anyone else interested. Must get on

 

Ps Tar, do not worry about God or any of that , it is all in a black box, with its input ,transfer function, output. It can remain there for later or never,or ( willing suspension of disbelief ) or whoever cares to open the black box and have a look. There may be anything in there , or nothing , or maths (perish the thought) , God or chaos, that is another issue . What is the issue at the moment is " what is going on" ?

 

I will worry about what I may or may not have put in the black box, may be I will never be forgiven ! Oops! Again

 

Mike

Edited March 12, 2014 by Mike Smith Cosmos

[tar]

Acme,

 

Nice link. The self-organisation one. Thanks. Jives nicely with with many of the thoughts I have had on human sensing and modeling of the world, (and concurrent learning/prediction/action) over the past several years, surrounding my personal "investigation" of the meaning behind language.

 

I get a little turned off though when the idea of self-organisation is used explicitly or implicatingly to counter the requirement for an "external" organizing principle. Seems too politically or anti-religion inspired, to be scientifically feasible.

 

I do believe that an extraordinary amount of the influences acting upon any system are macro ones. They certainly match the internal micro influences and in such a dwarfing and overnumbering way, that to exclude the superior from consideration, is foolhardy.

 

I had started a thread a while back on "organizing principles" and got no takers. Sounds too much like I am proposing God or something, I suppose. Same reluctance to talk about such things reasonably, surrounds the idea of intentionality, as if to admit intentionality exists is some sort of problem.

 

I can, with 100% certainty say that I intentionlly do, those things that I intentionlly do. Following from that statement is the equal certainty that intentionality exists in the universe. And since it is not just me that has it and does it, it is an objectively true, real thing that this universe has...that is, intentionality.

 

If one is capable of self-organising and has a history of like organisms proceeding him and cooexisting with him, there is PLENTY of reason to believe that, at least in the case of humans, intentionality is real. To find this self-organisation so many places and in so many ways, at so many different levels, with plenty of math and examples to back it up, in so many "unintentional" places...begs one to consider, either we have magically aquired intentionality and are the only ones with it, or it has, does and will exist a little bit, everywhere, naturally as a thing that can and does emerge, anytime an entity self-organises...intentionally.

 

Mike,

 

I do not relegate this intentionality or cleverness, or self-catalyzing dynamics in the far-from-equilibrium areas, to a black-box. I think its quite out in the open and pervasive. Perhaps even ubiquitious. From my personal anti-religion perspective, I quite discount anybodies ability to "know the secret of the black-box". I think it quite evident and available to all. Not the kind of thing one can covet or have in a unique and unavailable to others, kind of way.

 

Still, modeling the mechanisms that are freely available to the quark and the quasar and every body inbetween is just as much a study of the cleverness of the universe, as it is effort to show that the universe has none...so I am with you, in considering it a safe bet that there is evidence of cleverness in nature and its processes. (and the creationists still have holes in their heads)

 

So work on the metrics, by which we can best measure that quantum boundry crossing thing that we so appreciate about the place, so we can love it, without fear that others will think we are making up non-existing things, or projecting ourselves onto the universe and expecting some anthropomorphic God to have created us.

 

Regards, TAR

 

P.S. If I fall silent over the weekend, its 'cause I am traveling with my wife to Va. Tech to visit my daughter who just recently passed her prelims and is now an official doctoral candidate in Chemistry and has been selected for a fellowship next year. I am so very proud, I had to share.

(she is the one between my Dad and my other daughter)

[Mike Smith Cosmos]

Lowering entropy is not the opposite of entropy. Low entropy is still entropy.

 

This is like acknowledging that there is hot and there is cold, which are at opposite ends of the temperature scale. You aren't doing the equivalent of asking for the opposite of hot, you're doing the equivalent of asking for the opposite of temperature.

 

.

The idea of the opposite of temperature has made me think a bit.

 

Temperature is very integral with thermodynamics and entropy. " Temperature " was involved with the early part of the universe with some humongous high temperature at the ' start ' fading down to today's 2-3 degrees kelvin . Causing the universe and Energy to flow outward. And a spreading out.

 

Looking for an opposite ! I would say a net force of " Attraction " would be called for . Demonstrated in all attractive forces such as Gravity, Electro, Magneto, Strong, Weak, this in Newtons . Causing things to move inwards , and come together .

 

Hence an ingredient for ' emergence of order ' in the ' generating ' process described earlier .

 

Mike

Edited March 13, 2014 by Mike Smith Cosmos

[swansont]

How is that the opposite? Attraction by itself doesn't lower entropy. It's the ability to release energy that lowers entropy in one place, but increases it elsewhere. And that's not the opposite of entropy, it's just entropy. That's how it works.

[Mike Smith Cosmos]

How is that the opposite? Attraction by itself doesn't lower entropy. It's the ability to release energy that lowers entropy in one place, but increases it elsewhere. And that's not the opposite of entropy, it's just entropy. That's how it works.

Surely with temperature there is a flow of energy from , high temp to low temp , thus an out flow of energy some goes to useful work , some goes to the environment and is lost or unusable .

 

Surely with attraction there is a falling of potential , say from one high energy electron band to a lower energy band pure energy in the form of a photon is given up and out for use . No waste . Gain of energy. Opposite flow to entropy .

 

Your energy flows away into the universe as waste heat, down the pan, heats up the surface of Mars , and is lost non recoverable ( higher Entropy. )

 

My Pure photon shines out of a nearby star ( the sun ) down to earth , causes Photosynthesis . My living trees flourish and grow into fresh supplies of obtainable energy for timber [ equivalent of or opposite to Entropy ]. a buildup of new positive potential energy. { in the form of freshly cut Timber }

 

Surely ! Everybody is happy !

 

Mike

Edited March 13, 2014 by Mike Smith Cosmos

[swansont]

Nothing you've said shows that anything is the opposite of entropy or temperature, just examples of high or low.

[Acme]

Acme,

 

Nice link. The self-organisation one. Thanks. Jives nicely with with many of the thoughts I have had on human sensing and modeling of the world, (and concurrent learning/prediction/action) over the past several years, surrounding my personal "investigation" of the meaning behind language.

 

I get a little turned off though when the idea of self-organisation is used explicitly or implicatingly to counter the requirement for an "external" organizing principle. Seems too politically or anti-religion inspired, to be scientifically feasible.

Thanks. As to your turn off, I think you are just making an argument from incredulity.

 

I do believe that an extraordinary amount of the influences acting upon any system are macro ones. They certainly match the internal micro influences and in such a dwarfing and overnumbering way, that to exclude the superior from consideration, is foolhardy.

I think it's a mistake to equate macro with superior. In terms of yourself, that is your body, is it superior to viruses that may kill it?

 

I had started a thread a while back on "organizing principles" and got no takers. Sounds too much like I am proposing God or something, I suppose. Same reluctance to talk about such things reasonably, surrounds the idea of intentionality, as if to admit intentionality exists is some sort of problem.

Well, as they say, there is no accounting for taste. What interests a few may not interest a many.

 

I can, with 100% certainty say that I intentionlly do, those things that I intentionlly do. Following from that statement is the equal certainty that intentionality exists in the universe. And since it is not just me that has it and does it, it is an objectively true, real thing that this universe has...that is, intentionality.

 

If one is capable of self-organising and has a history of like organisms proceeding him and cooexisting with him, there is PLENTY of reason to believe that, at least in the case of humans, intentionality is real. To find this self-organisation so many places and in so many ways, at so many different levels, with plenty of math and examples to back it up, in so many "unintentional" places...begs one to consider, either we have magically aquired intentionality and are the only ones with it, or it has, does and will exist a little bit, everywhere, naturally as a thing that can and does emerge, anytime an entity self-organises...intentionally.

This all seems to begin to bear on consciousness and I think Hofstadter's strange loops, both the concept and the book, give a reasonable and well thunk accounting of that. I can only again suggest you read the book. The entire thing is more-or-less a single argument and fair-use notwithstanding there is no conveying it in snippets and clippets. If you don't want to buy it I'm sure you can get it at a library. I have a copy and am re-reading it sentimental goo and all. I wouldn't want to go misrepresenting Dougy in any of my assertions and while Mike expressed surprise that I should like such a book I got a lot from it on my first read a few years back. [i loaned it out for awhile but the loanee never read it so I recovered it. Again, there is no accounting for taste.]

 

 

Regards, TAR

 

P.S. If I fall silent over the weekend, its 'cause I am traveling with my wife to Va. Tech to visit my daughter who just recently passed her prelims and is now an official doctoral candidate in Chemistry and has been selected for a fellowship next year. I am so very proud, I had to share.

(she is the one between my Dad and my other daughter)

Trey kewl. Congrats all around!

 

Regards, Acme

[tar]

Acme,

 

Thanks. Very cool indeed.

 

Strange Loops may find its way into my library, but I am content going right to the source...that is, what is true will remain true, and if his argument is true one can come to the same insights, and make a similar argument, in another way. That seems a fine thing about true things, that they are true, in another way, as well. If something is not true in more than one way...well then it isn't true. It's got to fit, with everything else that is true.

 

Swansont,

 

Well entropy, being entropy, requires an exchange. What do you think of the thought that Mike and I are pusuing about the hydrogen atom and its levels of energy. That it, the atom is attempting to come to rest, or lose all its energy by emitting a photon that occurs when an electron falls to a lower energy level...but is thwarted in its efforts by some other atom's effort to do the same thing.

 

Our current thought about attraction, and clumping and attractive forces being antithetical to a leveling out of energy, in that the more atoms you have in close proximity, the more likely it is that you as an atom, will not be able to get your electrons to a ground state.

 

Regards, TAR

That, coupled with the fact that any point in space is surrounded by the entire rest of the universe, and has been, since the beginning, requires that there always has been a continual stream of photons coming in, from all three dimensional compass points, since the universe became transparent, and the depth of field, the sources, the other atom's photons that are available has continued to increase, since. And the boundry between universe that is transparent to photons and universe that we have not yet received the first photon from, is expanding from this point, at the speed of light. Any point in the universe has been recieving photons from "local" atoms for 13.6 billion years, from some distant atoms, just recently has the inflow begun.

 

Does not seem to me, our poor hydrogen atom has any chance of getting its electrons to a ground state, any time soon.

[swansont]

 

Swansont,

 

Well entropy, being entropy, requires an exchange. What do you think of the thought that Mike and I are pusuing about the hydrogen atom and its levels of energy. That it, the atom is attempting to come to rest, or lose all its energy by emitting a photon that occurs when an electron falls to a lower energy level...but is thwarted in its efforts by some other atom's effort to do the same thing.

 

Our current thought about attraction, and clumping and attractive forces being antithetical to a leveling out of energy, in that the more atoms you have in close proximity, the more likely it is that you as an atom, will not be able to get your electrons to a ground state.

 

 

Not sure what you mean by entropy requires an exchange. Photons are bosons — you can make as many as you want, and increase the entropy of a system in the process.

 

An atom is attempting to come to rest? No, that implies a preferred frame of reference. It's not at rest in some other frame. Maybe if you use the CMB background you could analyze this. Eventually the CMB will be at a wavelength too long to excite the hyperfine transition.

[Acme]

Acme,

 

Thanks. Very cool indeed.

 

Strange Loops may find its way into my library, but I am content going right to the source...that is, what is true will remain true, and if his argument is true one can come to the same insights, and make a similar argument, in another way. That seems a fine thing about true things, that they are true, in another way, as well. If something is not true in more than one way...well then it isn't true. It's got to fit, with everything else that is true. ...

That strikes me as both untrue and a sort of copout. If you don't know Hofstadter's arguments, you're in no position to compare any other to it. Moreover, there is simply no basis in fact that an insight/truth is destined to occur even once, let alone multiple times. If you don't read about strange loops at the source so be it; however you won't be in any position to understand or incorporate any arguments from that topic that may enhance this discussion. Your loss IMHO.

[Mike Smith Cosmos]

.

It strikes me that this example shows nature with all it's generation capabilities , to take the processes that preceded the advent of butterflies , to produce such an amazing creature as this from a pile of minerals, water and gases.

 

I think this deserves entropy to be taken down to 2 on my 0-10 score board at least .

 

. ENTROPY SCORE 2 Well ordered.

 

Mike

Edited March 16, 2014 by Mike Smith Cosmos

[Ophiolite]

Qualitative and subjective adjustments were not scientific at the start of this discussion, Mike, and I don't think anything has changed.

 

Your thoughts have a definite place in a barroom conversation between two friends. Speculation is the life blood of scientific process, but it has no value until it is constrained and focused.

 

I think I may need to drive down to Devon and straighten you out.

[Mike Smith Cosmos]

Qualitative and subjective adjustments were not scientific at the start of this discussion, Mike, and I don't think anything has changed.

 

Your thoughts have a definite place in a barroom conversation between two friends. Speculation is the life blood of scientific process, but it has no value until it is constrained and focused.

 

I think I may need to drive down to Devon and straighten you out.

Meet me here ;-

 

ENTROPY SCORE 8 partially ordered

 

And we will argue it out on the EXE estuary . Here at Lympston , down from Topsham . But don't come till after 26th March as I am off to my retreat in Italy to lick my wounds . And return to fight another round !

 

Mike.

 

Ps where in uk are you roughly ?

Edited March 16, 2014 by Mike Smith Cosmos

[Ophiolite]

Ps where in uk are you roughly ?

North of Aberdeen. As my profile says, in sight of three battles: Mons Graupius, Harlaw and Barra. However, this week I'm in Houston.

[Mike Smith Cosmos]

North of Aberdeen. As my profile says, in sight of three battles: Mons Graupius, Harlaw and Barra. However, this week I'm in Houston.

ABERDEEN !

 

That's just before one drops off into the sea, next stop Arctic Circle. I have been as far as Dundee , but used to live in the Lake District , before moving back down South to Devon , from whence I came .

 

Butterflies like the one I illustrated , flit hither and thither down here. ( score 2) . All you guys have is haggis ( score 5 ) running around in the heather.) !

 

I recon entropy must still be very high up there . The mountains are real old stock ( score 9.3 ) not refined down to our dessert red sandstone. ( score 8 )

 

I recon my " bell curve " is predictably taking shape.

 

http://www.scienceforums.net/uploads/monthly_03_2014/post-33514-0-75629000-1393940049.jpg

 

Mike

Edited March 17, 2014 by Mike Smith Cosmos

[tar]

Acme,

 

True insights are had regularly, more than once, because they are fitting and appropriate.

 

In my estimation scientific method relies heavily on this. Peer review would require a second mind to have an obtainable, real, true insight, similar to the first, for real true reasons. And it has not been the case, that one can have a true insight, that cannot be had by another, and certainly if it is a true insight, insight haver B can have it independently from insight haver A. In other words, Hofstadler's having a true insight, does not prevent me from having it, independently. If the insights are true, they can be reproduced and obtained independantly, and your requirement that I read his arguments, to talk about them, cuts out the most important middleman, that being reality itself, which is available to me through the insights of all I have read, all I have witnessed and all I have mused about.

 

Thus the odds of having a false insight more than once are low, but the odds of having a true insight, more than once, is exceedingly high.

 

SwansonT,

 

The argument that the CMB will oneday stretch out to a wavelength too long to nudge a electron to a higher energy level, ignores too very important considerations. One, that day has nothing what-so-ever to do with us, and two, it ignores all the photons that are currently on their way to this locale, that CAN bump an electron to a higher energy level. It bothers me that the general expansion of the universe is considered as "one thing" that has this inevideble demise, while at the same time, it is considered that "local" galaxies that are gravitationlly bound, are not subject to this expansion.

 

What overall principle would allow the rest of the universe to escape our view, but keep Andromeda forever within it? Seems a condradiction worthy of a better explaination, than to consider that the CMB will one day no longer matter.

 

Regards, TAR

Mike,

 

I think your picture of gravel is not an 8. While the butterfly may be 2, you are not leaving enough room on the high side of the bell curve for exceedingly unordered stuff. My guess would be that Earthbound stuff is already normal or on the lower end of the scale.

 

Conceptually we have to leave room for outliers on the high side of the curve that are examples of extreme disorder. Not likely we will find such on a walk, on our good Earth, within the reach of the ordered energy being pumped in this direction by our Sun, within our Suns gravitational embrace.

 

Regards, TAR

There is a cement and rebarb wall holding up a railroad overhead, on a road I use sometimes, between where I live, and where I work. It is crumbling a bit, and does not look quite so permanent as it did the first day, I used it as an example of stable things, made up of mostly empty space and an occasional spinning atom and magnetic and gravitational and subatomic fields.

 

Regardless of the seemingly fleeting attributes of the walls constituents, it has been holding the trains from falling on the road for the twenty five years I have been watching it. Its been doing this since before I first saw it, and will likely still be doing it next year.

[swansont]

SwansonT,

 

The argument that the CMB will oneday stretch out to a wavelength too long to nudge a electron to a higher energy level, ignores too very important considerations. One, that day has nothing what-so-ever to do with us, and two, it ignores all the photons that are currently on their way to this locale, that CAN bump an electron to a higher energy level.

It doesn't ignore them. The existence of those photons sets the date. Photons currently on their way will be redshifted by the expansion, and at some point the photons we see will be redshifted to a certain temperature such that the bulk of the photons are not energetic enough to excite the transition, just as the ones we see now are redshifted into a distribution that's at 2.7 K.

 

 

It bothers me that the general expansion of the universe is considered as "one thing" that has this inevideble demise, while at the same time, it is considered that "local" galaxies that are gravitationlly bound, are not subject to this expansion.

 

What overall principle would allow the rest of the universe to escape our view, but keep Andromeda forever within it? Seems a condradiction worthy of a better explaination, than to consider that the CMB will one day no longer matter.

That's a separate discussion.