As if anybody reads this anyway : P

Another conversation I'd like to report, not the most interesting, not the most awesome but sort of relevant. But I'm of course mainly posting this because I have a test tomorrow and I really don't want to study.

So today's question is: is logic limited?

What are the limits of our ability to apply strict object based reasoning?

This question is relevant to every aspect of one's life and I find that taking an idea to its maximum state is a good way to get a better feel of its properties, applicability and the possible directions further development could take it.

I'll start off by stating that logic isn't self sufficient, it isn't the 'atomic unit', the smallest divisible unit here as one cannot have logic without information computing ('thinking') and information storage for retrieval and storage.
So as far as humans go logic mixes with culture, what information we have, "what we know" has a direct impact on what we will know and how we will find out about it.
Culture allows us to 'sit on the shoulders of a giant' by offering information, but also technologies that allow us to access new knowledge and put us into new situations illiciting new questions and new methods to answer them.

I want to make clear that I believe it's important to separate the CONCEPT of logic and the REALITIES of our universe.
While we can extrapolate a closed system from the processes we call logic the same cannot be said of the rest of the universe. The first is a perfectly controlled system, like a chess game if you will, every property is understood and there are no unknowns. The second is unknowable as the only way to know everything that is and therefore being able to say if physical limits can be applied to logic would be to be 'bigger than everything' which simply cannot be. The observer would have to be a part of a system and have unperfect information about the possibilities of the system to process and store information.

Let me give an example: By playing with the CONCEPT of logic I can say that it can indeed theoretically tend to infinity for an infinite amount of time (time here being used as a quantitative rather than qualitative value, so just as a mutiplying factor)
Why can I say that? Simply because nothing theoretically excludes the structural possibility of endless computation and endless storage of data, so infinite growth of information/knowledge through logical processes.

Now let's see the REALITY of logic.
From what we know logic is a causal process happening in our causal space time, logic implies the use of structures such as A+B then C (a+b=c) were c is the consequence of the interaction of a and b just like a car crash is the consequence of two cars moving toward each other at great speeds.
This space time should be limited for the only reason that if it was infinitely old it would be infinitely hot as an infinite amount of stars would have had an infinite amount of time to radiate everything (to put it simply). And the universe cannot go on eternally because of things such as:

Proton decay -matter is inherently unstable-
Rising entropy -'chaos' rise with time-
The apparently limited amount of matter in the universe -limited computation and data storage capacity, a "mind/computer" could never store and compute more data than the maximum capacity of the universe (10 to the power of 138 or something, no that's wrong, i'll check it later)

BUT, as our knowledge of the universe is inherently limited (the observer has to be smaller than the system)realistic unlimited logic/thinking/knowledge/information could still be possible.
Here's an example: Everything that happens in space time depends on variables such as the speed of light, but those rules break down under the planck length (1.6× 10⁻³⁵ meter) and time (5.4 × 10⁻⁴⁴ second) meaning that if we could produce a computer (computering work in the same fundamental way human logic does ) able to compute at these scales we could theoreticaly compute information out of space time, meaning infinite computation in 0 time, litteraly.
To extract the information in the space time we all live in we'd still need to follow causality and get the information at least one unit of time after the computation order was issued, but hey, 5.4second with fourty four zeros BEFORE isn't exactly long.

To conclude:
So yes, logic is structurally unlimited, exponential and self expanding through technics such as computering, genetic engineering etc. And while the physical ability of the universe to support infinite growth of knowledge is unknown, the expansion of the human mind into a superlative is, in my humble opinion, a dream worth grasping for.

Theee Ennnd off thee Woorrld (dramatic voice)

So, I must feel like sharing today I guess.
Someone started a talk about how human progress is doomed to lead us to destruction. The usual stuff, you know, that thing we all thought, read and heard about.that humans are a disease that is going to consume the earth and kill us all, that there's no way to escape it.

So here's my usual short litte-patience-guy answer:
you can see every life form as a mean disease that consumes the poor innocent minerals. Ah, and those stars that won't let hydrogen be, who needs heavier elements anyway!

And here's the complementary explanation, a close up on the things implied, all the details I never talk about because it's just boring and long and fastidious.
In case you're interested and have some time to waste.



Creation.. destruction.

It's the way of universe, starting from the simple and going toward the complex, leading to the emergence of new structures.
Stars were a step in this process, biology another, human accumulation of cultural and technological knowledge, in other words Civilisation, yet another.



And just as the Uni\Multi-verse's expansion accelerates, so does our's. Only the universe conveniently creates it's own Space-Time.
Human on the other hand are still limited by planet Earth: We grow faster than our capacity to expand ourselves and our environnement. New buildings and cities used to be enough of an adaptation, not anymore.

We are capable of acting on our environnement with an ever growing precision to deploy more and more energy. And our societies are growingly complex.

Yet we're still the same biologicaly frail creatures, we still prefer to see 'our own' win rather than 'the others'. Because we were designed for limited spaces, with limited ressources. Because each new structure is defined by what came before. Helium is defined by hydrogen's makeup, life must depend on star and planet-born light and matter, human culture is born in the flesh and all the biological imperatives it implies.

So among other things, the sort of competition that used to emerge between tribes fighting for a hunting ground soon applied to entire civilisations.

But this very idea of competition is one of the keys to our progress.
The very idea of human progress is the same we find in stars, hydrogen must be destroyed for helium to exist, plants must die for animals to live... Ideas, nations, people .. must die for new ideas, new nations and new people to live.

The real issue is the growing lack of balance between our capacity for destruction and our physical frailty.
While it also means we have a growing capacity for creation and isn't a problem in itself we now have the means to
apply such forces than we could destroy our environnement in a few decades (pollution etc) or in an instant (Da Bomb).

So, when there's excess concentration of energy, what does the universe do?
It expands since the big bang. And when matter is locally concentrated, it creates new matter by nuclear fusion.

We need to do the same, we need to invent additional ways for the cultural pressure we generate to be gentled. We need to come up with new 'steps' in the complexity of the universe. We need space travel, to expand through the universe. We need IAs, virtual realities, an interplanetary internet, gravity and quantum computers... We need to focus our capacity to create and share information in an environnement expanding too fast for strong competition to emerge.

As I said before, the universe keep it's energy in check by creating complex structures and expanding itself.
In the last decades Space Travel and the Internet have proven we also have the capacity to create new grounds for our growing cultural and human mass to expand, that we can also create a force counteracting overaccumulation of energy, because energy is potential, and potentials must have space and capacity to express, to come into existence.
The only other possibility is collapse. Just as massive stars collapse into black holes when deprived of fusion, just as the universe'd collapse into a singularity if it didn't expand, just as humanity will obliterate itself if it ever stops looking forward, if it ever stops progressing.

So no, progress isn't equal to extinction... as long as we never stop.
Just as a plane isn't dangerous, as long as it doesn't impact the ground.

With great speed, comes great mass. With great mass, comes great energy.

E=mc² ;)

Philosophy of science for dummies.

Yesterday somebody asked me that question:

"Honesty in delusion. Is that really then delusion?"

What led to that life shattering interrogation was my teasing of a so called intellectual. I'll spare you the details, but yes, it has been enjoyable to one party. Me, that is.

The talk ended up by stating that, anyway, as far as sophism goes, every affirmation can be backed up by a gifted conversationalist.
So what makes one thing truer and righter than another?

It's its direction, the way it spread in the darkness. This is the reason why:



You know zeno's paradox?

YOu know the story about achilles and the rabbit.
Achilles can never keep up with the rabbit because he always has a smallest and smallest "fraction" of distance separing him from the damn rabbit. To understand the race we have to know that, we can only estimate positions by stopping\'freezing time'. So at constant speed the position at 1 sec will be 2 times further than at 0.5, 1000 times further than at 1ms et caetera.
This introduce an infinity in the variables. While we know the distance between the rabbit and achilles (or the arrow and the apple, further below) is finite, the computation is infinite, and achilles gets ever closer to the rabbit without ever reaching it.

I'm lazy so I'll google..

"Stated for Dummies, this Parodox means that Achilles (the fleet-footed Greek war hero of Achilles Heel fame) can never catch up to the slow-poke tortoise if aforesaid tortoise has any sort of head-start, however short that head-start is. Whenever Achilles reaches a point that is somewhere the tortoise has already been, the tortoise will have, by then, advanced 'slowly but surely' past that point, so that Archilles will still have farther to go, even if it is an infinitely small one. Therefore, Zeno says (and rightly), swift Achilles can never overtake the tortoise. "

The issue of the imperfect human truth.

Our general understanding of the universe is getting closer and closer to a 1:1 model of the universe without ever reaching it.

Each time we explain let's say, gravity. We explain things we previously didn't understand.
We expand our knowledge and therefore how much of the universe we can account for.
We then find out that the orbit of i-forgot-which-planet isn't accounted for correctly(mercury?) by newton's gravity.
then the human achilles advances again, shining upon the 'wrong orbit' darkness by finding out about relativity.
But einstein's theory leads to theorize and indirectly observe new unknown limit states such as black holes and the big bang, create some new terra incognitae. The unknown advances further.
And so on, And so on.

To apply the concept of the zeno's paradox
Human understanding may accelerate exponentially faster and faster, but the steady progression of the unknown will always be one step, one tenth of a step, one billionth of a step further. Because the only way to really totally 'understand' the universe, is to be the universe. So the best we can do is getting closer and closer to a perfect comprehension.

To use a formula from a book I read some time ago, the speed of dark is faster than the speed of light.
Because wherever there is light, it was preceded by darkness. And without the darkness, there'd be nothing for the light to shine upon.

Applying that to the idea of the delusion, yes, we're always wrong, and everytime we display our knowledge and call it light, we omit there's always darkness lurking.
So we'll always be a little wrong, no matter how far we go. Towards the infinitely small.

Using the paradox of the arrow it would be translated such as: the arrow is our science of the universe, the human truth. The apple is the absolute truth.

Shoot an arrow towards a man standing 1 meter away, you can say that.
In half the time it went half the way to the man. *50cm left/50% to the target*

• In 9\10th of the time. *10cm left/10% to the target*

• In 99\100th of the time. *1cm left/1% to the target*

• In 999\1000th of the time. *0.1cm left/0.1% to the target*

And so on AD INFINITUM, The arrow never reaches the man.


But you see, zeno's paradox has an answer.Calculus.
Now I started writing a book but I decided to stop and just use a simple concept you should know.

0.9999999999999999999999999...= 1
Endlessly getting closer to 1 is 1.
Endlessly looking for the truth is the truth.

Going epic: Therefore as long as our ignorance and our delusions strive for the truth, to get further and further ahead, to free our knowledge from the bondage of human relativity and try, endlessly and hopelessly to reach for the stars and grasp the multiverse.

As long as this is our ideal, as long as we stay honest to it, we hold the truth forever in our hands.

---

In conclusion: The truth lies not in what we know but the unknown, and the very fact of pursuing it is already truth in itself. But the danger lies in sophism, in closed logic that only thrive on ego and a desire to prevail rather than a geniune pursuit of the unknown, wherever it lurks.


ps: if somebody wants the full explanation including the calculus answer, just ask, otherwise I will spare you.

Going NUTS!

Oh well
I'm going nuts, whacko, crazy, out of control. I need to bail, to run, to get the fuck away.


Exams, AGAIN!
I'm sitting there, doing nothing, Nothing at ALL!

I can't handle it anymore. I'm not studying, just boring myself to death on some forums.
It's pure torture. Yet I know I should study, I just can't, I never could. What the hell am I doing in a business school. Can't they just upload all the knowledge and methods directly into my brain.
It can handle it damnit.

I close my eyes, and I can clearly see myself base jumping through my window howling any random battlecry I can come up with.
The idea and all its wicked siblings race through my brain, breaking every neural speed limits.
I can't even stand up and go to the toilets or wherever without puting on my headphones and listening to something stimulating, getting some information into this mind of mine.
Lectures after lectures, documentaries, refreshing forum pages like I have OCD. No more new movies to watch, I don't want to ... anyway.

This is me, on a satursday at 8pm.
The year is 2009.
Happy new year.

The story of the Cuss-O-Meter

Who doesn't love a good ol' experimentation? We all do, Indiana Jones taught me that. When it comes to life, you got to put your hands in the mud.
Therefore I present you with this test for my cuss o meter, which doesn't seem to be working.

fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck
fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck

I had to edit that post and delete a few hundreds **** so Anto wouldn't faint.

Conclusions of the experiment : Adding a few hundrer fucks LOWERED my dear-cuss-o-meter ratings from 17 something percent to 13.5. Which is basically like calling me a nun and meaning it.

Fucked up? Yes!

So I cocked up my own little image, available on your right.

Ain't I glad microsoft gave Paint to the world.

'Night!

Fred

I had a dream

Dreams, such a pretty word.
I don't remember those, except when I'm dreaming.
Within those, a clue will remind me of other worlds, another night.
On occasion I recollect some of it. Brace yourself for tonight was one of those lucky nights.

It all started with my going to bed. The darkness was punctuated by cries, my nephew's that is. Kids these days.

But in there, in my own world, it was a quiet and pleasant night.
Bottom line: my earplugs were doing their job just fine.

As My brain morphed into another state, shades of black covered my every conscious thought. And before I knew it, I was deep into oblivion. Falling further and further away.

The universe, biggest parking lot of them all. Right now, my space is vacant. On the fringes, near the exit door, there's a guy who can't quite remember being me.
Here we are, meeting with the Sandman, having a drink with Alice, gazing upon Sheherazad as she brings a thousand and one stories to life.

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and brats. Welcome in wonderland.

Bits and pieces:
I have an appartment, near my school. Rented by my old appartment's landlord, who also happens to be my best mate's mom.
It's empty, it's messy. I've been there for months. The walls tell a story of poor isolation and humidity. I like it, it's warm. I like warm.
I just can't recall when I last paid my rent, this bugs me. I don't like my landlord, and knowing why she always shows up and what the hell she wants might help.
But I never ask. Courting disaster wouldn't be too smart.

**MISSING DATA**
I have a bike, it's work related. I do package delivery.
**Tape number 2 is missing**
There is a fight, the guy runs away from my place, he has something that belongs to me or something I want, maybe it's just an assignement from work.
He's on foot, I'm riding the damn bike. Climbing stairs , taking the subway, and going round. We finally end up back at my place.
**No DATA**
It's noon. I'm back from school, and can't remember my schedule for the evening. I just want to lay there, with somebody warm and confy.
Checking my laptop, I just can't type correctly. Took me a while to finally remember and type the school's intranet's address. Trying to do something 'normal' with a sleeping brain can be a pain.
**MISSING DATA**
Something happens, there's ... a crime ? ... along those lines anyway.
I now have some freakish brain power. Yeah, the x-men kind.
I think "man, this is fucked up"
**My memory hates me again**
I go visit some actor, I just don't know his name. He looks really awkward. I think "what the hell, he's a damn hollywood star, why is he acting like a shy 7 years old". Fishy...!

We talk about ... **BLaNk**

There's a knife, originally from my mother's kitchen, the tip is broken, so i won't get hurt when pressing it against my forehead. This is from another dream, but i only recall the connection and a few images, not the dream itself.

I put the knife to my forehead, it sticks like there's a magnet in there. It sticks to his forehead too: it means something. Can't remember.
Action again, Raging Bulls rush into the room, there's a brawl. Ain't I glad I did watch Wrestling on tv. I take on the first bull, a second one bursts in. I'm on the ground with bull number one.
So I twist its legs. It collapses.
Hollywood guy is taking care of the third and last 'fellow'.

But it's all an illusion. A trap. All the roads link that whole fucked up dream to my place. I've been set up!!
I run.
I arrive.
There are people there, dead obviously. upside down and hanging from the ceiling. The place is shadowy and looks like a butcher's meat fridge. Also their skulls are cracked open. Charming.


Im at my parents' place. I open my room's door. Two girls wearing bath towels are sitting on the ground facing each other and appear to be having a good time chatting about something. Two old friends.
I'm like 'sorry' and closes the door faster than I ever did IRL.
It used to be her room that's what the confusion is about, a long story I won't tell.

I can hear laughs. I did have a startled face, explains the sonic outburst.
There's something very childish about that scene. My persona felt as if 13 years old and kind of shy. Wierd.

Whatever else happened, has been lost at sea.

Sore throat? Pants down!

Centuries ago, people would do wierd things and call it a cure.
My all time favorite being the whole 'let's drill a hole in that girl's skull, we'll save her from the devil'. It makes one wonder how primitive we'd be nowadays if we weren't 'sitting on the shoulders of a giant'.

I have my idea: We'd probably still be convinced thunder must be a divinity for it holds the magical
flame that brings saturday barbecues to life.




Back to 21st century medecine: A sore throat and some temperature let me oversleep a whole friday, cunningly skipping the part about human beings sleeping during the night. Yet I did go the pharmacy so I wouldn't have an excuse for not finishing my pack of Lucky Strikes before the weekend comes to a close.

The pharmacy lady, assured me the cure had to get through a place where the sun never shines. Nah, you didn't misread that, I'm indeed talking about the dreaded suppository.

I do get the medical details but still, grown men sticking things up their asses with a smile is a rather niche market.

And so I headed back home, a cynical smile on my lips, I somehow can't help but see the fun in the absurdity of everyday life, especially the part about making the suppository minty...
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Because a picture tells more than a thousand words: