The Fire in the Equations #5

Reflecting on the questions:

Have we met all of the candidates for the creation of the universe?
Could we still believe that God created the universe? That God could be the first cause? (pg 136)
Or is God restrained by mathematical and logical consistency?
What actual relevance does the theory have to wether or not we believe there is a real God? (125, 126)
Have we gotten any closer to the answer of the origins of the universe?


There are more than 81 questions in this chapter. This gives us a hint on the way Kitty Ferguson writes.

What does Ferguson mean when she says that it would be a bigger bother if the universe did not exist?

Is truth God?

Armando de la Torre 4

El hombre, a comparación del resto del universo, es nuevo. Pero lo mas importante que le sucedo al mundo. (mientras no se demuestre lo contrario).

Heráclito: todo cambia
Parmenides: nada cambia
los griegos pensaban que los objetos que se mueven tienen como causa final el reposo. (como propósito).


Si no hubieran colores, ¿podríamos ver el mundo?
No, por que con colores miramos formas, perspectivas, movimientos, etcétera.

¿Que pasaria si todos fuéramos sordos?
Parte de nuestro conocimiento no existiría.

Nuestras suposiciones están ligadas a nuestros sentidos. pero los humanos son los únicos que pueden divide de suposiciones y crear cosas nuevas. Podemos suponen cosas mas allá de nuestra existencia; imaginación.
Casi todo lo que hacemos en la vida es basado en algo que suponemos y no conocemos.

La ventaja del hombre sobre todo en el mundo es que podemos imaginar.

 "Tu eres lo que has comido intelectualmente"

Si no hubieran leyes naturales, no podría haber ciencia.
Solo que no debería de ser llamado 'ley' ya que uno puede romper las leyes, y estas leyes naturales no se pueden romper.

La ley natural es como una descripción de algo que pasa en un momento y lugar determinado.
Pero las leyes naturales son muchas clases, y dependiendo de cual escogemos, nos acercamos mas o menos a la verdad.

La mente nunca va a poder concebir todas las leyes naturales, porque no tenemos las palabras y conocimiento.

El cientifico busca aproximar al infinito aunque sabe que nunca va a saberlo todo. Durante el camino encuentra cosas, pero nunca lo sabrá todo.
Por eso es que todas las teorías y experimentos pueden ser falseables.

La ciencia y la ley natural solo son aproximaciones.

Copernican Revolution

Why was innovation clearly so difficult for an aristotelian to conceive or accept?

Meta-Dialogue: apr 4

Different perspectives affect how we see everything.

• The Fire in the Equations dialogue (between Majo and Bert)
• Big Bang 
• Copernican Revolution
• Difficult conversations ch.2
• GEB (maps)

To improve in this, we must try to understand other people. But we must expect things to just work like this either. It is a process of trial and error. (like the process with which we made our rubrics).

Why is it that one day we are influenced by something, and the next day by something else? Are we really that affected by our humor, the way we receive the message and the way in which the message is given? 

But really, they are biases in ourselves:

• difficult conversations (conversation between Eng-an and her husband)
• Khaneman's beauty.
• Subjective reasons
• Kitty Ferguson's beauty

At the end the influence of accepting something or not accepting it comes from ourselves. 

To improve in this, we have to suspend assumptions. 

This leads us to the following:

why is it that sometimes we know we have a bias and we still use it?

The power of the mind:

All of the time I am looking at everything through my mind. We have memories of our past and we have assumptions of our future. 

We don't just live in one dimension and time, we live in many (inside our heads) and this affects our decisions. 

Sometimes we don't realize things like assumptions, social problems, etc, because we would need to pop-out of the system. 

Meta-Dialogue: apr 4 (Stream of Thought)

Something that has really impressed me this week was how sometimes we have many views on things, different perspectives. It is hard to realize which one is true. That is if you can ever realize it. But I could see it this week with our discussion of The Fire in the Equations, specially between Majo and Bert. I could also see it in the book, where there are many theories about the origins of the universe, but it is hard to tell which one is right, whether it was the Big Bang who created it or God. I think that our maps in Bloom's dialogue also has a lot to do with this. We all see/remember things differently. But I think this is for another reason, which is experience.
But going back to the Big Bang, all of that had to be caused by something. I mean, yeah, the Big Bang could've created our universe, but there had to be something before that, something had to cause it.
This relates to our class with Armando, about all of the causalities of the greeks and how just one remained, the efficient cause. Although I think I got a little lost or something because I don't remember why that was.

The Fire in the Equations #4

Even though we have all theories about the creation of the universe, God, the universe just is and mathematical and logical consistency, we can't prove or disprove any of them.

"As dearly as we may hold those assumptions and as well as they’ve served us in the past, when it comes to arguing for the validity of a proposal for the origin of the universe, these are self-serving arguments—good argu- ments maybe for hoping a theory is correct, but no arguments for decid- ing it is. Such a decision would be an act of faith." 

 This is prove that we can't really prove anything. They don't prove that they are the only truth.

Armando de la Torre 3

For the greeks, science is to discover the cause of something.

Cause: all that produces the existence of other things. (Episteme)

The Greeks had four kinds of causes:

• Efficient: That which present causes another (who did it?)
• Material: what something is made up of (stone, rubber)
• Formal: what something represents, the shape it represents (a horse, a god)
• Final: the purpose of something, what it was made for. 

There is always a reason for things that people do. There is a purpose in everything.

Scientific Revolution:

The regularities that Kepler proves about Copernicus' theory is what we now know as natural laws. (Kepler's laws).

• When people changed from the Greek way of thinking to the modern one, this is what happened:
• the material and formal cause cease to function and at the end are discarded. 
• the modern stat to explain everything through numbers. 
• moderns only took into account the efficient cause. 
• humans started being studied as a machine. 
• Final cause is reestablished (intentions). Specially in economics, but it only count for the study of humans, the rest of nature only uses the efficient cause. 

Consciousness is what separates us from the rest of the animals.

Gödel, Escher, Bach #10

Its amazing how the min sometimes makes us feel or not feel certain things. Like what happened in class with google nose or with the ghost limb that happens to most people who have been amputated.

We have our body and apart from it, we have our mind. Are they really two different things? Could they be connected?

Sometimes we integrate all of our senses in order to get just one sensation.

Meta-Dialogue: mar 21

What happens if this world we are living in is not reality? And what if there is a world superior to ours?
Humans could be like the ants in GEB, there could be something greater.
Kind of what Blum said in class; we could be in a video game of some superior being y he can suddenly turn us off. And maybe we are just not capable enough to recognize this other life.

holism vs reductionism.
We (humans) are a lot of small things that when united become something bigger. But at the same time each one affects the group individually.
I dont believe this goes with the beliefs of the university, because the university defends the individual.
But what works better, a group of an individual person?

There is something different in just a bunch of individual people together, like in a doctors office, than a group of individual people with a purpose.

There is holism and reductionism in everything. At the end, every society is a mixture of holism and reductionism.

This goes hand in hand with austrian economics and the university. Many of the university values  of the university appreciate the individual because from better individuals comes a better group of people.

With people, we dont really pay attention to what we are really made of (or a level of what we are made of), like molecules, atoms, etcetera. Instead we talk about feeling when we try to define ourselves or someone else (fun, nice).

Reductionism: understanding the small parts in order to understand the whole.
holism: explain the whole in order to reach the parts.

Meno #2

Meno's argument is that how do you know what to look for?

"How will you look for it, Socrates, when you do not know at all where it is? How will you aim to search for something you do not know at all? If you should meet with it, how will you know that it is the thing you did not know?"

The Fire in the Equations #3

Problems we encounter in order to find objective truth

Is there a way to look at the universe free from bias?

Where is fancy bred? Where do points of view and opinions come from.
Everything we have looked at is affected by our point of view.

Gödel, Escher, Bach #9

Andrew Wyles and Fermats Last Theorem

How our minds work: Sometimes out of the blue we have a moment in which something clicks and we discover something.

We can also see it like the figure and the background (Art). That is what Andrew had to do in order to come up with the answer. Look where he hadn't really looked before, and see it from another perspective.

Meta-Dialogue: mar 14

Origins of the universe:

• The Fire in the Equations
• GEB
• Ascent of Man
• The Copernican Revolution

What is the essence of human beings? (identity)

• GEB
• Meno
• Ascent of Man

What makes us more human? What makes me be me?

We are always changing. Is change part of us?

We have been able t o interpret the universe throughout our senses. (Bronowski, Copernican)
but our senses  also limit us (Fire in the Equations).
You can see this clearly in The Copernican Revolution . Our senses told us something, but at the end they were wrong. (Ptolomy)

Our senses give us theories.
If we take our spectacles as theory, we see everything through that theory.
There are several options of thing we could do with our spectacles:

• We can change our glasses.
• We can modify our glasses. 
• We can put on many glasses at the same time. 
• We can wear no glasses. 

We also have many different perspectives: a kid, adult, cubist (Fire).
The cubist is like having many glasses on at the same time. We have many different ways of seeing things.

Even if we  do millions of experiments, each result can be totally different. (Popper).
We will never know with certainty if a theory is correct or not.

Meno

In the dialogue they are trying to describe virtue without using virtue to describe it.

Socrates gives Meno advice on how to have a dialogue, which Meno doesn't follow.

"If the souls are truth.."  would this imply that we are never wrong?

Socrates says that we have eternal souls that know everything about the world. Each time a soul is reborn, it has to recollect all of his thoughts / past learnings.
So we rediscover everything.

Gödel, Escher, Bach #8

Nozick: The Closest Continuer Theory

When we have two identical copies of ourselves and we disappear, who is our closest continuer?

I think that what makes us who we are and what makes us different than others are our experiences.
We have a culture in ourselves. We change with each experience we have, every moment.

We also change a little bit with every person, depending on our relationship with them (couple, friends, parents)

The Copernican Revolution

Why did it take so long for the heliocentric system to be adapted?

• For the logical reasons that created the other system. 
• Religion. Man kind had to be the center of everything. 
• The perfection of circles. 
• It was a complete system (for everything that we can perceive). 
• People tend to attach themselves very much to what they think it truth. 

Theory predicts. Once you have a theory, you have some basic assumptions in order to continue your inquiry into that theory.
Once you adopt a theory, you start relating everything to that theory. But this might be a contradiction because theory is based on assumptions.

The conception of the universe is itself the product of a series of investigations that the two-sphere universe made possible.

Armando de la Torre 2

Nature of mathematics: mathematics does not say anything, but with mathematics you can say everything.

All of mathematics can de reduced to mathematical principles.

Why is mathematics so important? 


Elements in math:

• Egypt / Babylon created the concept of number. (old world)
• Greeks added the concept of proof. (classical world)
• (Modern world) added the concept of duration / experiment. 
• (20th century) added the concept of probability. 

Tautology: the predicate means the same as the subject.
All of mathematics is tautological, because the core of mathematics are equations (both sides are the same)

Through mathematics we use experiments in order to come up with more theorems, By experiments we prove the truth of our statements. But we cant have experiments without mathematics. Mathematics helps us explain the result of experiments.

Meta-Dialogue: mar 7

Is beauty objective or subjective?
Nature is not always symmetric, then could beauty be asymmetric?

Complete: you could enter or add anything and it would still work.

Consistent: doesn't have contradictions.

Gödel thought that mathematics is a system, which is incomplete but consistent. The reason for this is that we cant prove mathematics with mathematics. We would need another robust system to explain this system. This cant be done.

Mathematics is like religion because it believes in certain truths that cant be proved. (Fire in the Equations, leap of faith).

The ptolomaic system was complete but inconsistent.

Can there exist a mind without the universe? Could the universe exist without a mind?



We should be more metacognitive and try to understand people more. We should listen to other points of view, in order to improve our difficult conversations. Both sides have to agree to try to work things out. If only one person is committed to improving the situation, then you cant have an easy conversation.

Humans seek to express themselves. Maybe this is because we are naturally selfish, maybe its because we need someone else's approval, maybe its because we are afraid we might get hurt or maybe its because if the human emotion and necessity to follow people.

One talks in a dialogue to try to contribute a piece to the puzzle. A persons input can also be useful for the rest of the people, as long as one is not trying to impose ideas.

Having a conversations means to remodel something, not to construct it.

Gödel, Escher, Bach #7

Proof: something that humans need to prove a derivation.

could propositional calculus be the pure rules of logic?

The rules are what makes a system work. If it weren't for the rules, we wouldn't have a system.
Rules can be seen as something isomorphic.
Although rules don't have to be isomorphic to reality.

Aleatory: outside the system.

A complete system should respond to everything. It should be universal. According to Gödel this doesn't exits.

Meta-Dialogue: feb 28

The following things this week talk about the importance of interpretation:

• Fire in the Equations
• Empathy process
• 12 angry men
• Language (Armando de la Torre)
• The world is a formal system
• Patterns

How do we know that we know?

What can we rely on in the universe in order to give us facts and truth?
If everyone has their own interpretation how can the world ever agree on anything?

Maybe we can demonstrate it in allopoiesis, showing mastery. But this still doesnt solve the question of how can we know that we know.
In 12 angry men, we can see that one is never sure that you really know.

We can take Poppers side. He said that we can only know when something is not true, but we can never know if something is 100% sure of something true. Like in 12 angry men, there is always a possibility for doubting. (reasonable doubt).

Episteme: knowledge that is certain. What is objective truth outside the impression you have on it.

Interpretation: kind of like what happened with the chair. Everyone has different perspectives.

Should we have a reasonable doubt on reality?
Always have in mind that there are perceptions and an objective truth.

What would happen if we doubt everything?
We always need a leap of faith (Fire in the Equations).
We have to at least believe in these leaps of faith:

• you exist
• you are sane
• knowledge can be acquired

We are in this reality, in which we can never know an objective truth. We can't pop-out (GEB) of the system in order to get a bigger view of the whole truth detail. Its outside our reality. 

The seeking of the truth is not a dead end, in which there is no point in trying. It is a road/goal that we will never reach but in the process of reaching it, we will acquire certain things that will make us or help us comprehend the world better. 

Even though we don't have the complete truth, we have a better understanding.

"Truth is not a democracy."

Crito

Socrates, trying to prove Crito that it was wrong to run away, answers that if he would run away he would destroy the city's justice. He would just end up proving that the courts have no power. They would do harm to the city and destroy the rules.

If the city gave you education, gave you nurture and then treated you badly, you should still obey it, even more than your parents. He believes he should obey and put the city before anything else, even oneself.

By staying in a city, you agree with the laws. Its like having a contract. Socrates mentions we should not break an agreement.

Gödel, Escher, Bach #6

connections:

Things come with meaning or we either give meaning to things. (Fire in the Equations). People look for pattern and things in nature that might not be there. (Fire in the Equations).

Mathematics can work as a universal language. (Philosopher Looks at Science).
Physics and geometry can not be universal languages.

Gödel says that there is nothing complete and consistent. Then this means that there really cant be a universal language, right?

The Fire in the Equations # 2

Can we be certain of anything? or do we just make theories and assumptions in order to try to explain things?

Observation.
it is one of the ways by which we learn.
The only way we percieve the world is through our senses.
But how can we ever reach an objective truth, when everyone might sense things differently and interpret them differently?

THE WORLD IS A FORMAL SYSTEM, we give our own interpretations to different things. Could it be that the world is just a system waiting for us to put our own variables?


The mind of a 17th century person:

• The universe is rational. 

If it is not rational, there would be no predictability. So it would be futile to study it (like reading a book with scrambled letters).
"It is difficult to see how all pattern could be merely our fabrication. But could it be that human beings have come to attribute more importance to the pattern found in nature than nature does herself?".
Is rationality pattern, symmetry and predictability? We can see patterns because of our beliefs (Thinking Fast and Slow)

• Accessible universe

If God understands it, so do we.

• Contingency

"One cannot learn about the universe by thought and logic alone. Knowledge comes by observing and testing it."