"a Universal Representation Of Rules"

[Bombadil]

“There are an infinite number of different ways to explain whatever it is that is being explained!” Can you prove that or is it no more than an opinion? It seems to me that you are confusing two very different issues. Proving that anything can be explained through the use of some collection of specific subtle concepts is in no way a proof that anything can be explained without the use of such elements. Sure, it could possibly be true, but you had better be able to prove it before you assert it as a truth!

 

I suspect that there are two different parts to this and I have been overlooking just what you are bringing up, when you say “Proving that anything can be explained through the use of some collection of specific subtle concepts is in no way a proof that anything can be explained without the use of such elements.” I have not really been considering this rather I have been thinking there must be an infinite number of different explanations that include a particular element doing a particular thing and from there assuming that there must exist one where we can define that element however we wish to.

 

The first part is answering the question, are there an infinite number of ways to explain whatever it is that is being explained, I say yes because we always have the option of adding a new element to whatever we are explaining and we can look at any explanation that includes this new element as a new explanation since this element wasn't included before and as long as we have no way to prove that it wasn't there in the first place we can put one there now.

 

However I have been taking this one step further, I have been assuming that we could add any elements we please, and make them behave in any way that we wish just by adding more elements, if needed, with the goal of making any possible element behave how we wished, no matter how we defined some particular element.

 

Of course the first thing that is wrong with this is that I am assuming that I can distinguish the elements and prove that it is in fact a particular element that is behaving in a particular way no matter how I define it. In fact this is backwards. It is how I define it that says how it behaves and if it is the same element in my explanation.

 

But thinking about this I really have no defense for saying that this is the case any how, that is it may in fact be that there is only one way to define a particular element and any elements that we may try to add would have to disrupt everything else so that it is no longer consistent with whatever we started with.

 

I don't know if you have any real interest in the question of if “Proving that anything can be explained through the use of some collection of specific subtle concepts can be expanded to proving that anything can be explained with or without the use of unique definitions for those elements.” but it seems to me to be an interesting question and I would like to know what your take on it is? Of course the “what is” is “what is” is a trivial counter example but I wonder if there are any nontrivial counter examples.

 

If no “objects” exist (that would be collections of information which can be considered as entities unto themselves; independent of the rest of the universe) then nothing can be considered independent of the rest of the universe. Don’t you realize that such an idea kind of puts you in a serious intellectual bind? That implies the only collection of information which can be considered constitutes the entire universe. That is an infinite set and can not be considered as no matter what you were aware of there still exists information you need before considering the situation. In essence that is an entity which can be represented only be a single point--that point represents “the universe”. Kin of leaves you with nothing to work with.

 

Then is this one of those things that the fundamental equation can't even tell us about? That is we can never prove that a set of elements can be defined such that every element will form a single object?

 

I suspect very strongly that you have missed the single most important issue underlying my work. You seem to think I am explaining what does and doesn’t exist. That is not at all what my presentation is about. My concern is “what constraints flow from the requirement of internal consistency and nothing else”. Essentially, from the perspective of my analysis, nothing need exist at all: every concept you hold in your head is a figment of your imagination. I concern myself only in the issue as to how these concepts must relate to one another.

 

Putting it that way then let me rephrase my question is it a consequence of internal consistency that whatever it is that we are trying to explain can always be separated into at least two objects? Clearly it must always form at least one object.

 

What does and doesn't exist is not a question that is coming to my mind, rather I am wondering what it is possible to consistently define. I really don't care if it exists or even if it can exist but rather if something can be consistently defined.

 

I am somewhat bothered by your use of the word “isomorphism” so I googled it and found “A one-to-one correspondence between the elements of two sets such that the result of an operation on elements of one set corresponds to the result of the analogous operation on their images in the other set.” Essentially that is equivalent to asserting that a term in one language refers to the same concept as does some term in another language. That is the underlying issue in everything I present. That is why I began with the idea of a numerical label as essentially the name of an element.

 

Yes that is what I mean by the word “isomorphism”, and if I'm not mistaken you are referring to the original labeling of every element with a numerical label so that it might be referenced? But the [math] (x,y,z,\tau,t) [/math] labels also satisfy this condition. That is, we could have chosen anything that is “isomorphic” to the [math] (x,y,z,\tau,t) [/math] space and came to the same conclusions that we are at now about the fundamental equation or about something “isomorphic” to the fundamental equation.

 

With this idea in mind I am still unsure if what you are thinking of when you say an “interpretation of an explanation” can be thought of as a “isomorphism from your expectations to a solution to the fundamental equation”.

 

I have no concern with “the interpretation of a solution”. My concern is the interpretation of those numerical labels used to represent the required concepts. If the concepts used to express an explanation are so labeled, then the numerical representations of the circumstances [math](x_1,x_2,\cdots,x_n)[/math] can be transformed into a time changing collection of points in a four dimensional space [math](x,y,z,\tau)[/math] where the expected probabilities (the expectations of that explanation) are solutions to my fundamental equation.

 

The way that you use the word interpretation here is still not clear to me. For instance, if I ask google what the word means it says

 

1. The action of explaining the meaning of something: "the interpretation of data".

2. An explanation or way of explaining: "it's open to interpretation".

 

Which leads me to think that you are referring to the actual mapping from the space [math] (x_1,x_2,\cdots,x_n) [/math] or something equivalent to it to the space [math] (x,y,z,\tau) [/math]. If this is indeed the case and you are referring to this mapping I don't have a problem accepting this as a definition, but I would like you to confirm that this is in fact what you are talking about when you say an interpretation of something.

 

That is because you insist on viewing the solution as expressed in some known language. That known language only exists after all the relationships between the relevant concepts has been established: i.e., the problem of “language” has already been solved.

 

The solution of my equation is the probability of the represented circumstance (exactly what I have defined to be “an explanation”). As I have said elsewhere, the only explanation guaranteed to be correct is the “what is” is “what is” explanation. Other possibilities arise only when specific limited issues are examined. For example, if I am going to only consider patterns of points in space which I can label “shoes” I will discover that the probability a shoe will have shoelaces will have a rational answer. What you should comprehend is that the answer is a result of my definition of “a shoe” and “shoelace”. They are related by definition; something which arose in my mind.

 

I do not understand why you say that I am insisting on a known language when I say “what I don't understand is what the relationship between a solution of any problem and a solution to the fundamental equation is. And I can't help but to think of it as some kind of mapping performed by some type of operator.” other then that this very mapping is a language that we use to represent our expectations of something in.

 

Isn't this the vary nature of what a language is, nothing more then the representation of a consistent framework in which definitions and expectations of definitions can be consistent. Or do you think that I am taking the fundamental equation literally and thinking that there is some fundamental equation somewhere that we all take and refer to whenever we have a question about what something means.

[Doctordick]

Reading your post leads me to the conclusion that you are misinterpreting my whole presentation. Perhaps chapter 1 of my book will clear some of that up: see http://foundationsofphysics.blogspot.com/

Have fun -- Dick

Edited May 28, 2014 by Doctordick

[Doctordick]

I found those threads created by Doctordick particularly interesting. Out of boredom at the office I have spent hours reading many of them. At a mininum he may be credited with an amazing ability to stir the pot!

 

Now some of his arguments seem absolutely right to me, while many seem to be completely meaningless. I have a specific question that I'd love to see answered.

 

Doctordick says his work is a tautology. In my mind, a tautology amounts to nothing more than an exercise in linguistics. If your logic is correct then what comes out is exactly what you put in, nothing more, nothing less.

 

With that in mind I find it strange that Doctordick makes claims of any kind, given that his presentation is not supposed to reveal anything that hasn't already been assumed. At the same time I find it amusing that people try to convince him he is wrong, which can't possibly be the case. Has there been something that I missed?

 

I'm asking this question about tautologies because, if I'm right, all those discussions here seem to be much ado about nothing. And that raises a particularly interesting issue for me.

 

Yes, what I have constructed is indeed a tautology!  I make the single claim: "there always exists a representation of any given explanation in the form of the truth of defined assertions expressed in the form [math]P(x_1,x_2,\cdots,x_n)[/math]".  And, as you say, if that assertion is true, "it is much ado about nothing!"  What is astounding is the fact that, if that explanation is internally consistent, it must obey my "fundamental equation".  Since all of modern physcs can be shown to an approximation to that equation, modern physics is "much ado about nothing".

 

Have fun -- Dick