Conservation Of Inherent Ignorance!

[Qfwfq]

Nice try Dick, but not much use.

 

Unless you are willing to do that, I see no rational response beyond simply ignoring you.

Do you still insist that I've never read those three posts? They are what I've been discussing and I had even mentioned the lack of clarity in the same part of the third one that Anssi has pointed out, in that thread.

[Doctordick]

Do you still insist that I've never read those three posts?

I didn't say you never read those posts; what I said was that you didn't understand them as most of your responses were totally off subject.

 

They are what I've been discussing and I had even mentioned the lack of clarity in the same part of the third one that Anssi has pointed out, in that thread.

Well, you buried your comments in so much off subject blather that I apparently missed it. Sorry. :unsure:

 

Have fun -- Dick

[AnssiH]

I'll shorten this to couple of relevant selections.

 

First just one general comment. Typically when I'm trying to understand what and why you are saying what you are saying, by far the most obvious explanation I keep getting into my head is that there's a misconception about what this is about. In particular, in what the idea of "undefined information" really refers to. For instance, it often feels like you are thinking that an explanation of undefined information is about having figured out some characteristics of that information itself in some way, perhaps guessing, or perhaps via some other unknown route.

 

Since you keep saying that you do understand what this is about, I am always trying to give you the benefit of the doubt. But typically, if I read your responses with the assumption that you do know what this is about, they just come out as non-sensical. That is how I feel about most of your responses that I am skipping.

 

So far, you had led me to understand that the first thing is what you call the second thing

 

I'm sure I must have said things in ambiguous manner here and there, and in some cases if it doesn't really even matter which one I'm referring to, but when it does, I've tried to be clear about either saying "actual reality/ontological reality" if that's what I meant, or "information underlying the explanation" or "undefined information" or "information-to-be-explained" if that's what I meant.

 

"Undefined information" is best understood explicitly as "the information underlying an explanation" as oppose to as "actual reality itself". The difference is important because "the information underlying an explanation" already has got properties that we can't attribute to reality itself (A finite volume for instance).

 

Because of you dismissing some previous points of mine.

 

Whatever this is referring to, I have not meant to say at any point anything about assuming bijectiveness to valid explanations, nor is such an assumption made in the analysis.

 

If this were so, it would mean that, if only we knew the truth, there would be no grounds for expecting tomorrow morning to come, or even the next tick of the clock. It would mean there's no point in scientific research at all, nor in engineering, any kind of planning based on experience, absolutely nothing.

 

You must have interpreted what I said as "a representation being bijective to actual reality would mean...". I refer to my above clarification about the difference between "actual reality" and "undefined information".

 

So, it seems that by "undefined information" you mean the "what is, is what is" explanation?

 

Well, almost, but not quite. When DD refers to the "what is, is what is" explanation, it does have some properties that undefined information doesn't have, but explanations do have. It is perhaps best understood as an (abstract) idea of direct mapping of undefined information to his notation, i.e. a mapping where no defined entity appears repeatedly in any temporal sense.

 

I said abstract because there's no way to actually perform that mapping. But he is using the idea to discuss some properties that are universal to other mappings as well.

 

-Anssi

[Qfwfq]

In particular, in what the idea of "undefined information" really refers to. For instance, it often feels like you are thinking that an explanation of undefined information is about having figured out some characteristics of that information itself in some way, perhaps guessing, or perhaps via some other unknown route.

I don't make actual assumptions about what you mean by "an explanation of undefined information" but rather I was trying to sort out the discrepancies between us. Given the above, try thinking about the following question: On which grounds do you believe it is possible to draw expectations of future outcomes?

 

But typically, if I read your responses with the assumption that you do know what this is about, they just come out as non-sensical. That is how I feel about most of your responses that I am skipping.

I don't regard this as a useful effort on your part. This kind of thing makes it totally useless to try to reach you.

 

I don't think non-sensical is the right way of describing my respones at all; I think you are unable to relate them with your ideas. Even if they seem so to you because of this, it still doesn't mean they are irrelevant and make no sense.

 

I'm sure I must have said things in ambiguous manner here and there, and in some cases if it doesn't really even matter which one I'm referring to, but when it does, I've tried to be clear about either saying "actual reality/ontological reality" if that's what I meant, or "information underlying the explanation" or "undefined information" or "information-to-be-explained" if that's what I meant.

Indeed you lack clarity. At this point you should clarify the relation between defined and undefined information, as you call it.

 

"Undefined information" is best understood explicitly as "the information underlying an explanation" as oppose to as "actual reality itself". The difference is important because "the information underlying an explanation" already has got properties that we can't attribute to reality itself (A finite volume for instance).

We can't assume that a "finite volume" is objectively a property of the poltergeist, but you have come across as if denying that the phenomena are in any manner determined by the nature of the poltergeist itself. I've been trying to point out the incongruity. Whether you actually meant the above or simply lack clarity as usual, you should realize that certain objections are meant to point out that you aren't making much sense, or appear to be professing an absudity, instead of attributing nonsense to me.

 

You must have interpreted what I said as "a representation being bijective to actual reality would mean...". I refer to my above clarification about the difference between "actual reality" and "undefined information".

This is no use at all, unless you are trying to say that you meant that bijectivity alone does not suffice to imply any definition of entities or any kind of structure in the poltergeist. That would be the result of having misunderstood what I was saying; by talking of a bijective representation I don't mean a useless carbon copy. You seem to make so many undefendable assumptions about what I say and how I mean it.

 

Well, almost, but not quite. When DD refers to the "what is, is what is" explanation, it does have some properties that undefined information doesn't have, but explanations do have. It is perhaps best understood as an (abstract) idea of direct mapping of undefined information to his notation, i.e. a mapping where no defined entity appears repeatedly in any temporal sense.

Actually I suspected such a subtle difference, but it seemed a way of wrenching a statement out of you.

 

I still keep thinking that, if the "undefined information" is neither that nor the poltergeist, it is useless to talk about it, you might as well be saying Buddha Mind instead of it. What role does it play? What relation does it have with the poltergeist? In the end, wouldn't there be an abstract mapping between the poltergeist and the labels? Or instead, could we say it is the same information, before any definitions have been made on it? If you can't get across some clear concepts, there's not much use in the discussion.

[Qfwfq]

BTW, it just struck me:

Since you keep saying that you do understand what this is about

Be sure to make the distinction between understanding what this is about and understanding how you guys talk about it. Do you get the distinction?

[AnssiH]

I don't make actual assumptions about what you mean by "an explanation of undefined information" but rather I was trying to sort out the discrepancies between us. Given the above, try thinking about the following question: On which grounds do you believe it is possible to draw expectations of future outcomes?

 

By recognizing some familiar recurring patterns. Even without knowing the meaning of those patterns, the fact that they have followed each others in the past, can allow for a prediction mechanism that assumes they will follow each others in the future too. To put it simply.

 

I don't regard this as a useful effort on your part. This kind of thing makes it totally useless to try to reach you.

 

I'm just saying that it really is overwhelmingly most obvious explanation from my part, that you are holding some misconceptions about this. Misconceptions about the meaning of the undefined information would easily explain most of the difficulties. That also makes it moot to respond to everything, I'm trying to respond to the most fundamental difficulties first.

 

At this point you should clarify the relation between defined and undefined information, as you call it.

 

Defined information is anything that can be referred to or understood in terms of any mentally comprehensible concept. A perception of any sort is "something you mentally comprehended in some form", which means it is defined information. Essentially, your perception is a defined representation of some undefined information.

 

I.e. undefined information is whatever it is, that is underlying our definitions and perceptions.

 

The reason it's been referred to as "noumena" is because we are talking about an idea of such "raw information", that can't be seen or understood as-it-is at all. We are trying to analyze universal aspects of any models that represent the expectations drawn from such information. Without making assumptions about what that information itself actually is like. That is why we are exclusively limited to results that can be achieved via inductive reasoning. (We are not analyzing the results of guessing that meaning either)

 

This is no use at all, unless you are trying to say that you meant that bijectivity alone does not suffice to imply any definition of entities or any kind of structure in the poltergeist. That would be the result of having misunderstood what I was saying; by talking of a bijective representation I don't mean a useless carbon copy. You seem to make so many undefendable assumptions about what I say and how I mean it.

 

I have no idea why you are bringing up this business of bijectivity, I just said what it would mean in terms of the undefined information (which doesn't have any persistent entities to itself of course).

 

I still keep thinking that, if the "undefined information" is neither that nor the poltergeist, it is useless to talk about it, you might as well be saying Buddha Mind instead of it. What role does it play?

 

Its role is to establish few important epistemological facts, which are important for the analysis.

 

1. That without making any assumptions about the information underlying the explanation, we are limited to inductive reasoning.

 

2. Any mechanism that is capable of representing those inductive expectations, is essentially a valid explanation of the information (we don't have any magical ontological measuring methods). I.e. any defined persistent entities and concepts that an explanation establishes, are not things that are explicitly seen in the undefined information (we don't "just see" reality, we interpret it)

 

3. The only way to keep all the valid possible interpretations open, is to make no assumptions about the meaning of the information, i.e. to make no assumptions about reality. We are only interested of epistemological facts. That is essentially why the definition of "undefined information" is what it is. We can't allow any undefendable aspects of that information affect our results. We are only defending aspects like "our world view must be a function of a finite amount of information".

 

etc.

 

It is easy to get stuck to ideas that we "could perhaps know" something about the information via some unknown routes, but every attempt to draw that out, would be to establish some definitions or some assumptions about reality.

 

What relation does it have with the poltergeist?

 

If by poltergeist you mean "reality", then that relationship of course remains unknown.

 

In the end, wouldn't there be an abstract mapping between the poltergeist and the labels?

 

If by any chance I understand that question correctly, then yes.

 

Be sure to make the distinction between understanding what this is about and understanding how you guys talk about it. Do you get the distinction?

 

Yes. Either way, the best thing I can do is just to try to be as clear as possible.

 

-Anssi

[Qfwfq]

By recognizing some familiar recurring patterns. Even without knowing the meaning of those patterns, the fact that they have followed each others in the past, can allow for a prediction mechanism that assumes they will follow each others in the future too.

This of course does not constitute grounds for the belief, and the reason is what you say later:

1. That without making any assumptions about the information underlying the explanation, we are limited to inductive reasoning.

Sure, but...

If by poltergeist you mean "reality", then that relationship of course remains unknown.

Finally you state that you are assuming there must be such a relationship, otherwise induction would be no use at all.

 

Now you have been accusing me of misconceptions when the only thing I've had difficulty with is your way of discussing these things, which causes confusion. I see no use for the "underfined information" and, on grounds of the answers you give, it follows that in order to believe it is useful to draw expectations one must be supposing that the patterns one notices and bases these expectations on are in some manner caused by some corresponding aspect of the nature of the poltergeist. It doesn't matter what the hell it is, if you don't assume some kind of relation then there are no grounds for expectations. Objections based on the notion of undefined information and insistence about ontological assumptions had no substance, they have only been misunderstandings.

 

There's no point in saying on the one hand that it makes sense to draw expectations from patterns and on the other hand that criticism of your analysis based on considerations about those same patterns can't be relevant. Your defense was just arbitrary bias.

[AnssiH]

I see no use for the "underfined information" and, on grounds of the answers you give, it follows that in order to believe it is useful to draw expectations one must be supposing that the patterns one notices and bases these expectations on are in some manner caused by some corresponding aspect of the nature of the poltergeist.

 

That would be a typical attitude to have towards one's own world view, yes. In other words, it is fair to say that a world view is one's beliefs regarding what the information is about or where it is coming from (loosely speaking). From epistemological standpoint, any "poltergeist" that anyone has in their mind, is a hypothetical element(s) constructed in a world view as an explanation to the information.

 

It doesn't matter what the hell it is, if you don't assume some kind of relation then there are no grounds for expectations.

 

I would actually take the alternative to be essentially an assumption of solipsistic reality, i.e, an assumption that the information underlying our explanation is the end-all-be-all of existence.

 

But all such assumptions are essentially beliefs established inside specific world views themselves. These possibilities are not consequential to the analysis itself because it only establishes arguments we can defend as universally valid. I.e, whatever the relationship is between the poltergeist and the information-underlying-our-explanation, we always only have "access" (so to speak) to that information.

 

btw;

There's no point in saying on the one hand that it makes sense to draw expectations from patterns and on the other hand that criticism of your analysis based on considerations about those same patterns can't be relevant.

 

If by "your analysis" you refer to DD's work, let's be clear that it's not my analysis; I wouldn't like to take unduly credit.

 

-Anssi

[AnssiH]

So Qfwfq, if we step back to;

 

http://scienceforums.com/topic/22171-conservation-of-inherent-ignorance/page__view__findpost__p__303584

 

From the "Just to cherry pick few things to keep in mind" point onwards, do you have any objections left about any of that? (Excluding the comment about the relationship between Bell experiments and DD's analysis; I don't think it's necessary to even try to dissect what I mean by it at this point)

 

-Anssi

[Qfwfq]

You are totally missing the point Anssi. I'm not talking about one's beliefs, I'm talking about logical possibilities. Solipsism is just one of them.

 

But all such assumptions are essentially beliefs established inside specific world views themselves. These possibilities are not consequential to the analysis itself because it only establishes arguments we can defend as universally valid. I.e, whatever the relationship is between the poltergeist and the information-underlying-our-explanation, we always only have "access" (so to speak) to that information.

The lack of any kind of relation would mean that the expectations could only be based on pure apophenia and are hence nothing reliable. It doesn't matter which worldview, of all possible equivalent ones. In order to be confident that the next morning sunrise will occur, and even how long you must wait for it, you must inevitably be assuming the recognized features in the data, patterns or whatever aspects your analysis has spotted, are determined by the poltergeist; you could believe in Ptolemy's worldview or anything else which somehow translates to the same perceptions, but you must be assuming some kind of cause for those features, in order to consider the expectations based on them as reliable.

 

If by "your analysis" you refer to DD's work, let's be clear that it's not my analysis; I wouldn't like to take unduly credit.

Neither would I like to take undue credit for it! I have no such interest, but anyway I was referring more to what you were saying so it wasn't up to me to attribute it to Dick.

[AnssiH]

You are totally missing the point Anssi. I'm not talking about one's beliefs, I'm talking about logical possibilities. Solipsism is just one of them.

 

The lack of any kind of relation would mean that the expectations could only be based on pure apophenia and are hence nothing reliable. It doesn't matter which worldview, of all possible equivalent ones. In order to be confident that the next morning sunrise will occur, and even how long you must wait for it, you must inevitably be assuming the recognized features in the data, patterns or whatever aspects your analysis has spotted, are determined by the poltergeist; you could believe in Ptolemy's worldview or anything else which somehow translates to the same perceptions, but you must be assuming some kind of cause for those features, in order to consider the expectations based on them as reliable.

 

Look, you are merely saying that the information-underlying-our-explanation must have some relationship with actual reality "because otherwise it would not be reliable". I am saying that this is so by the very definitions of the terms we are discussing.

 

If the information-underlying-our-explanation did not have any relationship with some hypothetical "actual reality", then we could never know, simply because our experiences could then never have anything to do with "actual reality". If you state "does not have any relationship", that is exactly what it would mean. Your explanation is only reliable to the information you actually do have. This is kind of strange and redundant discussion on many levels, isn't it?

 

You know, DD has defined "the universe" simply as referring to the entire set of "information-to-be-explained". The reason is simple; that's all you have to work with, by definition.

 

Is it not redundant to point out that "the information underlying our explanation must have some relationship to actual reality or otherwise our explanation is not about actual reality"?

 

Or have you interpreted something I've said as somehow making an argument about assuming that there is a reality which is not in any way connected to the information-underlying-our-explanation?

 

-Anssi

[Qfwfq]

Look, you are merely saying that the information-underlying-our-explanation must have some relationship with actual reality "because otherwise it would not be reliable".

I am "merely" saying that drawing expectations about the next data based on the previous involves a tacit assumption.

 

It is hard for me to be sure of what you intend to say because you do not define your meaning well at all.

[AnssiH]

I am "merely" saying that drawing expectations about the next data based on the previous involves a tacit assumption.

 

It is hard for me to be sure of what you intend to say because you do not define your meaning well at all.

 

If by "tacit assumption" you mean that assumption which is part of the definition of inductive reasoning, then I think we are on the same page about this issue.

 

I think we should continue this discussion on the "Most critical question" thread, let's see if we can establish an understanding even about what we mean by "a world view". As long as we are not sharing our terminology even about that, we can't be communicating effectively.

 

-Anssi

[Doctordick]

This a requested response to Bombadil's post of 12 January 2011.

 

But what about the possibility that an explanation exists that requires that such a relationship is not included in the function.

And how would you go about setting up such a requirement?

 

Isn’t the way that you are setting up the problem requiring us to include the relationships that are implied by complex numbers in the final equation. Isn’t this the effect of using the relationship

 

[math] \frac{d}{da}\Psi=ik \Psi [/math].

That is nothing more than assuring that shift symmetry of those arbitrary indices is not precluded.

 

Then you are just trying to define P so that it is a bound function between 0 and 1 without constraining the possible forms that [math]\vec{\Psi}[/math] will take. I assume that we don’t mind if solutions show up down the line that would satisfy such constraints, we just don’t limit ourselves to only such solutions.

I don't understand your statement. You don't mind is solutions down the line yield probabilities outside the range of zero to one? I think that violates the definition of probability.

 

Then the expectations of something are not a function of probabilities but rather ones expectations are only a relationship of [math]\vec{\Psi}[/math]. So the probabilities are not only unknowable they also have no effect on any expectations? Then are our expectations more like an equivalence class of [math]\vec{\Psi}[/math]?

I am representing expectations of something “as” probabilities of that thing. Expectations are not a function of probability, they are probabilities.

 

Can this tell us anything about P or is this more like a smoothing property of P?

No, it yields nothing in P. It's sole purpose is to remove any consequences of shifting the origin of the reference system implied by those “arbitrary” indices. Since they are arbitrary, shifting them can have no consequences in our expectations.

 

Sorry about missing your post -- Dick

[Bombadil]

And how would you go about setting up such a requirement?

 

I’m not sure if I had something special in mind but basically I am wondering if the value of K in the equation [math] \frac{d}{da}\Psi=ik \Psi [/math] is allowed to take on any real value including zero. In which case the equation would become simply [math] \frac{d}{da}\Psi=0 [/math]. In effect any requirements of complex numbers have been removed from the equation. Clearly the use of complex values for k would not be possible as it would effect the value of P.

 

I don't understand your statement. You don't mind is solutions down the line yield probabilities outside the range of zero to one? I think that violates the definition of probability.

 

No, rather kind of the opposite case. That is we don’t mind if a solution shows up that would satisfy a stronger set of rules then the constraint of shift symmetry that you are defining here as long as it satisfies shift symmetry.

 

I am representing expectations of something “as” probabilities of that thing. Expectations are not a function of probability, they are probabilities.

 

Perhaps I made a bad choice of words. If we are asking the question of what this tells us about a world view it really tells us nothing, as even if it could be solved in a general way the result would just be a shift symmetric function which would make P be bound between zero and one. However, if further constraints are add to the equation, solutions to the resulting equations, it seems, could be looked at as classes of equivalent solutions (that is they all satisfy a particular constraint) it would then be these equivalents classes that we would be interested in and not in actual solutions to the equation which can‘t be solved anyhow.

 

Now just to be sure of what this derivation is doing, it gives us the requirements needed for the function P (which supplies the probability that some set of elements will be in a particular set of locations) to be constant with a shift of the coordinate system. It tells us nothing about the actual form of P and it tells us nothing about any internal relationships of the elements being described, in fact the whole point is that it leaves these relationships completely open so they can be defined elsewhere.

 

One final note, I notice that you don’t bring any attention to the question of K being anything other then a constant. I don’t know if this was intentional or just a consequence of the issue seeming trivial to you, however, I did find your previous post on the topic and just wanted to make sure that this was still the only reason you have for using a constant.

 

I don’t see anything else that I have a problem with in the opening post so I will continue in the other thread unless you bring up something of importance.

[Doctordick]

I’m not sure if I had something special in mind but basically I am wondering if the value of K in the equation [math] \frac{d}{da}\Psi=ik \Psi [/math] is allowed to take on any real value including zero. In which case the equation would become simply [math] \frac{d}{da}\Psi=0 [/math]. In effect any requirements of complex numbers have been removed from the equation. Clearly the use of complex values for k would not be possible as it would effect the value of P.

You seem to misunderstand differential equations. Differential equations define how a function changes, not what value the function has. They are subtly different things. And, nowhere have I made any constraint on what value K takes on.

 

That is we don’t mind if a solution shows up that would satisfy a stronger set of rules then the constraint of shift symmetry that you are defining here as long as it satisfies shift symmetry.

Again, you seem to have the issues backwards. My equation is specifically designed to accommodate any set of rules. The whole purpose of my approach was to make sure that nothing was “required” to be true other than the fact that P would yield exactly the expectations implied by the explanation being represented.

 

Now just to be sure of what this derivation is doing, it gives us the requirements needed for the function P (which supplies the probability that some set of elements will be in a particular set of locations) to be constant with a shift of the coordinate system. It tells us nothing about the actual form of P and it tells us nothing about any internal relationships of the elements being described, in fact the whole point is that it leaves these relationships completely open so they can be defined elsewhere.

I get the feeling that you have missed the entire thrust of the presentation. My fundamental equation is “fundamental” because it places utterly no constraint on the explanation whatsoever. It is no more than a mathematical statement of the constraints implied by the explanation. It is derived from the definition of an explanation and nothing else.

 

That is exactly the reason that almost twenty years passed between my derivation of the equation and my discovery of those subtle physical consequences which moved me to try and publish. That fundamental equation was never derived from any physics defence; it was never intended to yield any part of modern physics. When I derived it I knew it was true and nothing else. I continued to look at it because I felt that such a fundamental constraint ought to have some implied consequences. I was absolutely astonished to discover that the ordinary assumptions made to defend much of modern physics also caused my equation to map into the common relationships held to define the reality supposedly defended by modern physics. That should never have occurred as such a thing implies modern physics says nothing about reality.

 

One final note, I notice that you don’t bring any attention to the question of K being anything other then a constant.

K is a constant because the differential of a constant is zero. Thus it is that the solution to the differential equation given doesn't really depend upon K. If K is a function of the underlying arguments, then one has brought in relationships without defense.

 

I don’t see anything else that I have a problem with in the opening post so I will continue in the other thread unless you bring up something of importance.

You should drop me a private message if you want to reach me because I seldom read this forum anymore. A private message generates an e-mail concerning its existence so I am led to read the thread in spite of not following the discussion.

 

Have fun -- Dick

[Qfwfq]

You seem to misunderstand differential equations.

It strikes me that you misunderstood Bombadil's point, which is quite correct (once the phase is considered to be a continuous, derivable and linear function).

 

K is a constant because the differential of a constant is zero. Thus it is that the solution to the differential equation given doesn't really depend upon K. If K is a function of the underlying arguments, then one has brought in relationships without defense.

This is no justification for the choice. K being a constant is a specific case out of all possible ones; the most general treatment would start with phase being an arbitrary function. Your choice is only one quite narrow class of them and you do not prove it being equivalent to all possible choices.

 

I was aying more about this in exchanges with Anssi but of course it's no use. He and Dick just suppose that the arbitrarity of labelling makes all choices equivalent to this one.