The problem of Self-Referential systems

Discussion in 'Physics & Math' started by Write4U, Jun 30, 2021.

  1. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    Yep, but when you win, the pay-out is a deterministic event.
    And there is always the law of "necessity and sufficiency". Sometimes the presence of sufficient causal agents, make it "necessary" for an event to occur. The more lottery tickets you buy the greater the possibility of winning.
    I have no quarrel with any of that. I am not concerned with people's actions and/or limitations.
    My position is that the Universe needs not be motivated at all. It is a dynamical object to begin with. It functions stochastically in accordance with the 4 fundamental forces acting on 12 elementary values.
    I agree, but none of that is relevant.
    My statement was that the Universe has no such human limitations. It doesn't need to understand anything.
    Self-reference does not necessarily imply understanding (Newton). However, given enough time and natural resources, it may evolve consciously self-referential organisms, like humans.
     
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  3. Beaconator Valued Senior Member

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    elements have been around before the invention of time. They aren’t exactly news
     
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  5. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    Well, Lawrence Krauss has a different perspective.
    He wrote a whole book about it. I admit it got mixed reviews.

    A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather than Nothing is a non-fiction book by the physicist Lawrence M. Krauss, initially published on January 10, 2012 by Free Press.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Universe_from_Nothing

    This does support my intuitive perspective that before the BB and spacetime, there existed a timeless and dimensionless "purely permittive condition" of nothingness. This would account for the FTL inflationary epoch directly following the BB, where the expanding energetic plasma was permitted to exceed the speed of light, for just an instant, until the spacetime geometry began to stabilize and acquired its mathematical permittive and restrictive properties.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation_(cosmology)#
     
    Last edited: Jul 14, 2021
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  7. Sherlock Holmes Registered Member

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    Don't fall for Krauss's pseudo-philosophy.
     
  8. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    Do you have a plausible alternative?
     
  9. Sherlock Holmes Registered Member

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    There's only one rational explanation for the presence of the universe, the explanation - logically - cannot be a scientific explanation because scientific explanations always presuppose a universe - the very thing we seek to explain!

    So explaining the presence of the universe without relying on forces, fields, laws means we must frame the explanation in a different way, completely different to the mechanistic, reductionist models we rely on.

    Put succinctly we cannot use science to explain science, that leads to a self referential paradox and paradoxes always indicate an error in premises or reasoning - ask any mathematician.
     
    Last edited: Jul 15, 2021
  10. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    Where do you think Science ends and non-Science begins?
    So you want to begin with an "irreducible complexity"? Now that is paradoxical in my book. It negates the entire model of evolutionary processes.
    I don't buy that logic.

    That's like saying you cannot explain truth with truth, beginning with the beginning, time with time, because it is paradoxical.

    In the end, every self-referential system is axiomatic. It needs no explanation because it is self-evident. Whether we can explain it or not is wholly irrelevant. The limitation rest with us not with the natural world.

    There is no inexplicable Magical sauce. Whatever it is it is Natural.

    Change the models, don't condemn Science! That leads to Religion, which is also paradoxical.
     
    Last edited: Jul 15, 2021
  11. Sherlock Holmes Registered Member

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    That's your choice.

    Yes, you can't explain any concept as a process that relies on that process, it is paradoxical, consistent explanations cannot be paradoxical.

    So you think one can make any proposition, then claim that its self evident and thereby establish it as true? is that what you mean?

    This is how Trump reasons, he won the election because the other side lost the election because of mass fraud that's been covered up and denied, this is self-evident (to him and many others) and therefore it is true, Trump won the election.

    So explaining things has no value? in which case Krauss's book has no value, no merit.
     
    Last edited: Jul 15, 2021
  12. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    I didn't say that. You stipulated paradoxical self-evident phenomena.

    IMO. today, all we can do is make the best guess. Our entire reality is made up of "best guesses". Shall we guess that Science is unable to provide ultimate answers?

    On the contrary. The current mystery suggests that everything, perhaps even "nothing", has a causal value. There is no Magic! That must be clear by now.
     
    Last edited: Jul 15, 2021
  13. Sherlock Holmes Registered Member

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    I actually made no mention of self-evident propositions, just for the record.

    Well I don't see how we can associate "best" with self contradictory paradoxical claims like those made by Krauss.

    Any explanation that contains paradoxes must be abandoned because it does not qualify as an explanation IMHO.
     
  14. Sherlock Holmes Registered Member

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    Well you haven't defined "magic" so how we can say if something is or is not that, is not clear to me.

    The proposition "nothing has a causal value" intrigues me, can you elaborate on this idea?
     
  15. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    I can't swallow the concept of "supernatural" forces.
    Consider, could a state of total Nothingness create a demand, a "necessity" for Something?

    How do we get to a dense plasma from nothing? Compression (implosion) is the only thing I can think of.
    Can Nothing implode and become compressed into an infinitely small singularity and acquire an emergent energetic potential?

    If we know that everything has its equal and opposite twin (particle/anti-particle), could nothing have an anti-nothing twin?

    I can visualize an infinitely small nothing singularity, that has a natural infinitely small anti-nothing singularity twin. Such a condition only needs instability, a symmetry breaking and presto, a mega-quantum event and the creation of an FTL expanding dynamical spacetime, where there was once a perfect energetic symmetry and balance.

    If we can establish a self-referential condition of compressed nothingness that makes it "necessary" for something to happen, we have Causality.

    In a timeless condition of nothing, the beginning of something would be instantaneous (a necessity) and the beginning of everything that follows, including emergent time.
     
    Last edited: Jul 15, 2021
  16. Sherlock Holmes Registered Member

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    That amounts - IMHO - to the proposition "only events that have a scientific explanation are possible" this is unprovable and also, as explained does lead to paradoxes because the very existence of a scientifically explicable universe cannot itself have a scientific explanation.

    So "supernatural" emerges as a rational basis for explaining some things, it is the explanation we infer when we eliminate material forces and laws from the picture.

    I don't see how that can be.

    No, these are very different concepts, an anti-particle has material properties that form a symmetry relationship with other particles, whereas nothing is an absence of matter, an absence of properties altogether.

    What your describing is a system that has properties, properties that are related to other properties (laws), explaining things in terms of these is reasonable, is science, but without any laws or properties you'd not be able to envisage any of this, your example proves the point, we must postulate material properties before we can envisage explanations for things.

    If something can happen then by definition we are not starting with nothing, a system where something can happen has properties, the property that "things can happen" since that's a property, a characteristic, it is not to be referred to as "nothing" as Krauss should understand but seems not to.

    The only rational way forward IMHO, is to postulate a presence, an agency that is not material, is not matter/energy/fields, is not law or subject to laws yet can cause matter/energy/fields to exist, not from laws, not deterministically arising from laws but from will, from intent.

    This is how I reason that God created the universe, God is that presence, that agency, the material universe is proof, evidence for such an agency and since its actions are not deterministic (consequences of laws, rules) the agency must act in a different way, we can act this way too, we call it will, intent, we are all familiar with this.

    Its as familiar to us as matter, as laws of nature, these exist and we know will, intent exists because we experience it just was we experience other things, will, intent exists in the universe.
     
    Last edited: Jul 15, 2021
  17. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    Hey, you are proposing the magical (supernatural) solution, aren't you? Don't bail out on me now!
    No one is talking about pre-existing matter/energy/fields. All that comes after the BB.

    I am talking about the metaphysical Logical concepts of symmetry and balance. No mystery or unwarranted creative intent, by a sentient agent. That is just unimaginable as a possible solution. The inherent paradox of that model is fatally flawed and prohibitive.
     
    Last edited: Jul 15, 2021
  18. Sherlock Holmes Registered Member

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    I said what I said, you are free to discuss, challenge anything I've said in my posts, any claims I've made, any reasoning or assumptions I've made.
     
  19. phyti Registered Senior Member

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    Write-4U;

    You are considering the universe without humans, vs. my considering the universe with humans, i.e. human experience. That's why we disagree on some points.

    Time isn't a cause of anything, It's a human convention serving a practical purpose.
    The inanimate universe is more like an automaton, as you described it. When a human invents a robot, it is less complex than the human. Life forms are more than the sum of their parts.
    Universal laws are intangible, what is their origin?
    ------------------------------------------
    If we imagine the 14 billion yr history since the 'big bang' as a movie, then we are expected to believe that walking in near the end and watching the last 4 milliseconds, will enable us to reconstruct the story!
    There are alternative theories.
     
  20. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    You are skimming my posts. Read and consider.
    I am proposing a timeless, non-dimensional, pre-universe condition. Humans or any other motivated entity are not even under consideration. All that comes 13.8 billion years after the BEGINNING of EVERYTHING.
    I never said time is causal to anything. If you have read any of my prior posts you'll see that my conception of time is that it is an emergent accounting of "duration", not the cause but the result of change.
    Yes, but emergent properties are not exclusive to biological systems.
    Liquid water, or ice, or vapour are emergent properties of large quantities of molecules consisting of non-liquid H and O particles, dependent on temperature.
    The eternal laws of Logic.
    ------------------------------------------
    I am just doing that. I am going back to before the filming of the story. And I am excluding a supernatural Producer/Director.

    In my model, the film writes itself (is self-referential) and the mathematics do the directing (are the logical guiding principles).
     
    Last edited: Jul 15, 2021
  21. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    20,069
    Read the principles of "differential equations"

    Differential Equation
    DE are an inherent property of all dynamical systems.
     
  22. Sherlock Holmes Registered Member

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    I do not see how the definition of a differential equation sheds light on the claim "Consider, could a state of total Nothingness create a demand, a "necessity" for Something?"
     
    Last edited: Jul 15, 2021
  23. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    If we accept the fact that we are all making unsupported speculations, what's wrong with identifying a potential unbalanced condition that might be causal to some sort of dynamical correction.

    Causality
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causality

    As an atheist, I rule out any consideration of a pre-universal intellectually motivated causal agency.
    What remains is a quasi-intelligent mathematical process that achieves the same result as an intentional agency, but requires a stochastic causality, a disturbance and a symmetry breaking, i.e. BB, at which point "differential equations" determine the resulting dynamical attempts to regain balance and symmetry and the evolutionary processes are set in motion.
     

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