The problem of Self-Referential systems

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

  1. Sherlock Holmes Registered Member

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    50
    You're wandering around in the dark, tell me, what does "complex" or "simple" mean to you and what does "more fundamental" mean? why is it "better"?
     
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  3. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    Did you read post #59 ?

    With the terms I used, I meant the exact meaning as defined in dictionaries. No hidden implications intended.
     
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  5. phyti Registered Senior Member

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    732
    Write4U;

    If nature includes human life forms, then pi is an abstract concept in the brain, which refers to the ratio of circumference to diameter, other abstract concepts in the brain.
    That is all human knowledge can be, abstract concepts representing the physical reality outside the brain. The brain and its neural network is physical. The world as it exists in the mind is perception, which may or may not agree with the world outside.
    If nature excludes human life forms, then what purpose would pi serve?

    Most human thought prefers the simplest explanation as a first approximation, to get initial understanding, then make refinement as needed. How many times in history we hear, "it's more complicated than we originally thought'.

    When you say 'time', I'm not aware you have a definition different from clock time.

    Who is 'we'?
    In the case of reproduction via male and female, both contribute. The development of embryos requires genetic code from both.
    For most animal species and humans, the parent body produces eggs, which develop within the body until birth. For birds, the egg is expelled to complete development outside the body. It is still a life form producing a copy of itself, with the egg an intermediate state.
    A process more complex than the egg.
    An additional question.
    What is the source of DNA or genetic code?
     
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  7. Sherlock Holmes Registered Member

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    Which dictionary? My question is your opportunity to elaborate, explain in more detail, that's what I'm asking you to do, explain in more detail.
     
  8. phyti Registered Senior Member

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    732
    Write-4U;

    Alternate theory to big bang.

    The universe began as an astronomically large field of dormant elements.
    The field was exposed to a source of energy, resulting in composition of more complex elements and random outward motions.
    This scenario doesn't require an initial super-fast expansion from a point and leaves a small residual expansion.
     
  9. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    20,069
    Do you want an explanation of the "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts"? Read Aristotle.

    Would you agree that a molecule is more complex than an atom? And how is it that when you assemble a large collection of H2O molecules the pattern acquires a character of "wetness", an emergent property.

    What is water, or ice ? Collections of H and O atoms in a pattern that is liquid or solid depending on temperature, no? H2O molecules are not wet!
     
    Last edited: Jul 19, 2021
  10. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    20,069
    Yes, but it has been established that there was a super-fast expansion from a singularity. It has been named the "Inflationary Epoch" and the echoes of this event are still measurable.

    While things could have happened the way you speculate, there is no evidence for that, and by Occan's Razor, etc........
     
    Last edited: Jul 19, 2021
  11. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    20,069
    "Discovery " is not opinion or making-it-up. It is somewhat like winning the lottery.
    But instead of money the result of discovery is gain in "knowledge". The exact opposite of speculation.

    It is by utilizing mathematics that we discover how the universe works and can test hypotheses, which reduces the uncertainty in the findings considerably.

    Mathematics is self-referential (equations)!

    Name me one axiomatic natural phenomenon or artificial pattern that does NOT involve a generic (algebraic) mathematical equation that can be symbolized with human maths.

    At some point you must admit that unless you invent a mysterious unknowable force, we have this universe pretty well figured out, granting that there are still gaps in our knowledge. But those gaps are due to our current inability to measure things that are too large (event horizon) or too small (quantum). But even that territory is already being explored. The discovery of the Higgs boson was a major triumph for applied mathematics.
     
    Last edited: Jul 22, 2021
  12. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    20,069
    You're just stuck on humans, aren't you? Without humans, the world would still be there and work exactly as it does now.
    It's an axiom! It exists in and of itself. It's an abstract self-referential equation, a universal constant.
    https://www.mathsisfun.com/geometry/circle.html
     
  13. exchemist Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    12,451
    π is a number.

    It is not an "equation".

    It is not an "axiom".

    It is a number.

    The definition of π in terms of the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter is not universal. It applies only in Euclidean geometry. The geometry of spacetime is not Euclidean.

    π does appear in a non-geometrical way in Euler's relation: exp(iπ) -1 =0. This relation is entirely abstract.
     
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  14. phyti Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    732
    I'm considering human experience.
    It's human curiosity that wants to know how the world works.
    It's human conceptualization of axioms and postulates that form the basis of knowledge, just like the sources you refer to. Mathematics is a language of human origin, and only meaningful to humans.
    The universe did exist before humans, and still exists independently of humans.
     
  15. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    20,069
    Thank you for the clarification.

    Question: Aside from the human symbolic representation, does the "value" exist in the abstract?

    ax·i·om, noun

    1.
    a statement or proposition which is regarded as being established, accepted, or self-evidently true.

    MATHEMATICS

    2. a statement or proposition on which an abstractly defined structure is based.
    p.s. AFAIK, Pi does not only pertain to circles. It also applies to the laws of probability.
     
    Last edited: Jul 23, 2021
  16. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    20,069
    That's a very limited interpretation of natural mathematics. Mathematics is inherent in all universal dynamics.
    Yes, and it had mathematical properties from the very beginning. Mathematics exist independent of human symbolic representations. Reality is based on mathematical values (patterns) and processes (algebraic functions).

    All orderly patterns are mathematical in essence.

    Abstraction (mathematics)
    Description
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstraction_(mathematics)#
     
    Last edited: Jul 23, 2021
  17. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    20,069
    Yes and "Universe" is a language of human origin and only meaningful to humans.

    Are you suggesting that without humans the Universe does not exist?

    On second thought, "Mathematics " is also meaningful to honey-bees. Ever heard of the honey-bee dance where a scout explains the precise location of a patch of blooming flowers.

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    Note the distance indicator.
    Figure-eight-shaped waggle dance of the honeybee (Apis mellifera). A waggle run oriented 45° to the right of ‘up’ on the vertical comb (A) indicates a food source 45° to the right of the direction of the sun outside the hive (B). The abdomen of the dancer appears blurred because of the rapid motion from side to side.
    A waggle dance consists of one to 100 or more circuits, each of which consists of two phases: the waggle phase and the return phase. A worker bee's waggle dance involves running through a small figure-eight pattern: a waggle run (aka waggle phase) followed by a turn to the right to circle back to the starting point (aka return phase), another waggle run, followed by a turn and circle to the left, and so on in a regular alternation between right and left turns after waggle runs. Waggle-dancing bees produce and release two alkanes, tricosane and pentacosane, and two alkenes, (Z)-9-tricosene and (Z)-9-pentacosene, onto their abdomens and into the air.[7]


    Description
    And now an interesting factoid.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waggle_dance#

    See, Mathematics and Astronomy are meaningful to the honey-bee, an insect!
     
    Last edited: Jul 24, 2021
  18. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    20,069
    But perhaps an example of how the neural network connects the parts that allow for the self-referential sensory experience and control of motor functions, which rely heavily on self-referential differential equations present while processing variable data.

    Imagine some 3+ billion years of sensory sophistication and chemical refinements, the evolution of a self-referential sensory biological pattern of ever greater sophistication and ability to self-analyze and engage in abstract thought and emotions.

    Actually that's one a few true analogies in the OT.

    A biological organism, risen from the prehistoric mud and acquiring self-awareness, via the parable of "eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil", and conquer the world with technology that exceeds all the evolved tricks that other species of biological life enjoy.

    And maybe our own self-referential demise ....

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    Last edited: Jul 24, 2021
  19. exchemist Valued Senior Member

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    A number is not a proposition, any more than "blue" is.
     
  20. phyti Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    732
    Write4U;

    They do since math is the shorthand language used to express the physical processes.
    Every equation can be translated into words.

    All values resulting from measurement are abstract. The act of measurement is a comparison of an object to an arbitrarily defined standard.
    1. Accepted on faith, assumed true until found false.
    2. Math is a manipulation of symbols (quoted from an unkown source).
    (Even though 'math' is labeled as archaic, I prefer it over 'maths', which sounds like someone talking with their mouth full.)

    pi is involved in the complex plane in the form of rotation.

    u=e^(x+iy)

    if x=0 and y=pi, u=-1

    read last line of #71
     
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  21. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    20,069
    IMO, both "numbers" and "words" are human symbolic representations of natural values.

    Take the human symbols away and the "natural value" remains.
     
    Last edited: Jul 24, 2021
  22. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    20,069
    See #78
     
  23. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    Evolution by Natural Selection.

    Let me remind you that:

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    Figure 2-1
    Chemical structure of the four nucleotides (two with purine bases and two with pyrim-idine bases) that are the fundamental building blocks of DNA. The sugar is called deoxyribose because it is a variation of a common sugar, ribose, which has one more (more...)

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK21261/#

    A very humble beginning gaining more complexity over time. There is still simple DNA around.

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    Dickinsonia was one of the first animals on Earth. It lived on the ocean floor 550 million to 560 million years ago. It looked like a giant version of the modern-day Trichoplax, the simplest animal now alive.

    https://www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/article/living-mysteries-meet-earths-simplest-animal

     
    Last edited: Jul 24, 2021

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