Koichiro Matsuno (kmatsuno@vos.nagaokaut.ac.jp)
Fri, 10 Dec 1999 10:19:54 +0900
Dear Stephen and All,
On 9 Dec 1999, Stephen Paul King <stephenk1@home.com> wrote:
> The idea that the states of a computational system is not fixed a
>priori is the key feature here.
Or even the notion of the states themselves must be given second thought.
>This line of thinking also seems to
>follow the general idea of "migrating inconsistencies".
Migrating inconsistencies have hard time to live with the notion of
states.
> Lebnitz's thoughts would also tend toward the "nay" side of the scheme
>also!
It seems to me that Leibniz would lose nothing even if his monad is
allowed to have a tiny window through which to see the outside nearby.
>We can
>construct space-times by showing that the relations between systems can
>act to "generate" a geometry (see the relationships between
>transformation groups, algebras and geometries!) and topology, instead
>of assuming a prior existing "container" in which to embed the system.
My taste on this is that I would like to do this sort of geometrization
from the worm's eye perspective, if I can.
> This seems to involve the necessities of communication. In order for a
>pair of agents to communicate there must exist some commitment to a
>standard, be it a language or a clocking scheme or both. I am wondering
>if the commitment requires much more than an "agreement" or "overlap" in
>the classes of observables (or meaningful messages) of the agents?
If you and myself share a sort of migrating inconsistencies, all the rest
would follow.
>[KM]
>> Intensiveness or intensionality must be a form of intentionality
>> de-transcended. A representation of an intensity could be retrieved from
the
>> record registered in the present perfect tense.
>
> Could you discuss this in more detail? :-)
Consider, for instance, a lightning striking on the earth. Electric
potential of the thundercloud is an intensity, which is going to be usurped
by the consumer, that is, the earth. What is unique to the
consumer-dominating thermodynamics is that lightning takes advantage of any
chance available first. Thunderbolt never waits for the second chance to
come. Intensities exercised in the consumer-dominating thermodyanmics run
down as fast as possible. The operation is selective in weeding out the
chance for the latecomers. We can identiy when and where the thunderbolt has
struck after the event. The slower eater cannot outmaneuver the faster
comrade. This has been what Charles Darwin said. In contrast, irreversible
decay in the supplier-dominating thermodynamics proceeds as slow as
possible. When the rate of sand fall from the above is fixed, the shape of
the sand pile thus formed would be the one that remains least fragile.
>[SPK]
>> > So, could we think of records as being "dissipative structures"
>> >(http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/ASC/Dissip_struc.html)that depends of the vary
>> >process of migrating inconsistencies? The term "autopoiesis" also seems
>> >to apply...
>[KM]
>> Some of the records must be dissipative structures. One may retrieve
>> completed movement from the record, but no one can tell whether or not
the
>> movement in the record has been completed in reality. So far, I have
failed
>> in seeing whether autopoiesis distinguishes between the present
progressive
>> and the present perfect.
>
> I think that all records are dissipative, iff we consider the quantum
>mechanical motions of atoms! It is the "pattern" that is stable in the
>usual sense... The idea behind autopoiesis is that a "process whereby an
>organization produces itself."
Okay. I believe I could understand your concern on dissipative systems.
Once we see the movement of the present progressive mode driven by the
migrating inconsistencies, those inconsistencies always come from the side
of the present perfect, rather than the other way around. Any movement is
irreversible. So far, so good. Despite that, I have tried to keep some
distance from what one calls dissipative systems. One reason is that this
notion has been conceived of in most cases within the framework of
supplier-dominating thermodyanmics as championed by the Brussels school.
Vicissitude of suppliers and consumers is most conspicuous in the economy
and even in economics. Why not the similar or more spectacular vicissitude
in the empirical domain at large or in thermodynamics?
>[KM]
>> You are right. Intensity is a means of implementing an intensionality.
>> Accordingly, intensity cannot be extensive because of its intrinsic
affinity
>> and relatedness to the whole in a bottom-up manner. French postmodernists
>> were extremely keen to this notion and actually rediscovered the medieval
>> philosopher Duns Scotus.
>
>"Like Italian theologian Saint Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus was a
>realist in philosophy, but he differed from Aquinas in regard to
>theories of perception. Duns Scotus held that a direct, intuitive
>grasp of things is obtained through the intellect and the senses.
>Aquinas maintained that intellect did not directly know material
>things but only the universal natures that are abstracted from sense
>perceptions. Duns Scotus held that universals as such do not exist
>apart from the human mind, but that each separate or "singular"
>thing possesses a formally distinct nature that it shares in common
>with other things of the same kind."
>
>http://encarta.msn.com/index/conciseindex/43/0435D000.htm
>
> Interesting thoughts! What is it that Aquinas' and Scotus' notions have
>in common? They both assume that minds are both finite and somehow have
>a property that is in essence infinite if we consider the existence of
>an infinite number of possible observers. Aquinas seems to makes the
>infinity spatial and Scotus seems to made it temporal, by using
>simultaneity and concurrency respectively.
Thanks for letting me know the above quotation.
>[SPK]
>> > I take the statement of yours " Although it can tell how the celestial
>> >bodies would move, Newton's mechanics does not tell us what celestial
>> >bodies would be available there in the first place." to imply that
>> >intesities relate to the a priori possibilities from which observations
>> >are selected, but I am not sure...
>[KM]
>> Extensive quantities alone cannot do anything by themselves. If these
>> extensive quantities are uniquely supplemented by their intensities, the
>> physics we know of it today can work remarkably well. Field theory is a
>> superb example. A difficulty may arise, however, if the unique
association
>> of extensive quantities with their intensities comes to be questioned.
>
> Umm, I may be misunderstanding your meanings here, but it seems that
>one concept that we can deal with is the "unique association". This
>seems to be a reflection of the classical assumption that there exist a
>priori associations between the extensive and intensive quantities, that
>are "knowable". This seems to be one of the fundamental tacit
>assumptions of classical physics, best illustrated by LaPlacean idea of
>an omniscient daemon.
What the physicist calls Renormalization is the diehard effort for
salvaging the unique one-to-one relationship between the extensive and
intensive quantities. I simply don't know its future fate.
Cheers,
Koichiro
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