Philosophical Questions

[Zzzptm]

If infinite monkeys with infinite typewriters would generate all the works of Shakespeare, wouldn't they also type up a legally enforceable "cease and desist" order to prevent them from being forced to type forever?

And wouldn't they also type out a copyright claim on all the printed works of Shakespeare, along with ironclad legal challenges against every publishing house that prints those works?

[Vyn]

They already have; we're just living in their world.

[Zzzptm]

They already have; we're just living in their world.

Then... are *we* the monkeys? If so, absurdist philosophy is making SO much more sense!

[Charger]

Maybe this world we're living in is just a matrix created by monkeys?

[Zzzptm]

Maybe this world we're living in is just a matrix created by monkeys?

Or maybe this world was created so that we would create the monkeys capable of generating a matrix to produce a world exactly like this one?

[KiloDeltaCharlie]

We ARE the monkeys!

[Zzzptm]

We ARE the monkeys!

Are we a "we" or are we an "I"?

[Charger]

I I I!

[Zzzptm]

 

And I believe Dio's singing is one factor that sets bands he's been in apart from the apes, so that opens up an earlier proposition for discussion.

EDIT: but seriously, are there other animals that create music for purposes other than defining territory and attracting mates and other such wilderness-driven communications? Is humanity's need for music existing alongside a realization of wildernesses beyond the landscape, in the heart, the mind, and the soul?

[Zzzptm]

https://www.maths.ed.ac.uk/~v1ranick/papers/wigner.pdf

THE UNREASONABLE EFFECTIVENSS
OF MATHEMATICS IN THE NATURAL
SCIENCES

I just enjoyed reading this essay, thought others might find some fun in it, as well.

[Vyn]

Oh how near to my heart. Not epistemology, but mathematics.

Although, anytime one thinks about things other than the practicalities of their immediate circumstance, wouldn't that be considered participating in epistemology? Was that question of epistemological origin in and of itself?

Ahahahaha!

Back to Dr. Wigner's essay - what a guy he was. I've always felt that much of his later writing (basically anything post-WWII) were simply parts of a larger, singular thought experiment joke he was pulling on everyone, it's just that he lived for so long that he ended up forgetting what he had set out to accomplish and so we never got the punch line.

That is not a derogatory observation; he was a brilliant thinker who was intensely interested in getting other folks to think. I actually got to spend some time with him many moons ago at Georgetown, as part of a small group of people. He exhibited an excellent sense of humor, and that's where my comment stems from. Interestingly (maybe just to me) that paper was one of a set of papers that formed the basis of the discussions we had with Dr. Wigner.

Sitting here right now, I can say he was the one person with whom I've had more than a cursory discussion with that left me awestruck.

Thanks for posting that - your choice of material displays excellent taste and makes up for your unreasonable affinity for Deep Purple

[Zzzptm]

Nice to see you, too, Vyn!

But that was cool that you got to have discussions with Wigner, that's the kind of brush with greatness that makes life most savory.

I latched on to that after seeing a video about Max Tegmark's thinking that the universe is essentially math made manifest in physical form (and I err in being too broad, but that's the essence of his argument) and Wigner's paper was mentioned in the video. The title is what captured my attention, as I found the situation it points out to be most intriguing.

Why is it, after all, that we not only have the ability to describe so many phenomena with mathematics, but that the same constants continue to pop up in the mathematics?

But at the same time, how do we check ourselves, to be sure we're not fishermen with nets of a certain size and using data from our catches to determine that there is a minimum size of fish in the ocean, and that it's impossible for fish to be any smaller?

[Vyn]

...how do we check ourselves, to be sure we're not fishermen with nets of a certain size and using data from our catches to determine that there is a minimum size of fish in the ocean, and that it's impossible for fish to be any smaller?

Indeed. It seems that with every paradigm shift in the natural sciences (humours to cells, aether to electricity, etc) our net gets refashioned with ever-finer eyelets. Yet it is still "us" who are making the net.

Bound by the constraints of our own perspective, using a net is the best way we've found to catch understanding of the world we live in. Translating the analogy into slightly more concrete terms, mathematical logic (not the philosophical kind) is that net, and it is at once amazing and frightening at how well it has seemed to work. Our ability to recognize that all of it may be wrong in some way (with right being defined as "true knowledge of things") via philosophical logic gives hope that maybe one day we will figure it all out.

And then what?

[Zzzptm]

If we figure it all out, then that would imply a frame of reference outside of our Riemann fourspace. Such a frame of reference would permit taking in the whole of time-space, with nothing left to speculation, as all moments and points in space would be equally visible for us to have access to a sufficiently large "all" to figure out the whole of it.

And, should we be in such a frame of reference, who, exactly, is there with the humanity in such a place of ultimate truth? And if there is no scarcity of time, what then constitutes the basis of human relationships in such an existence? My own thoughts drift toward the spiritual realm, of which I look back to Wigner and Tegmark as having said there are things that rigorous scientific investigation and mathematical reasoning cannot provide proof for. But I also read that a paradox is merely a thing that demonstrates we have arrived at a horizon of our own understanding and that, with persistence and confidence, we will eventually cross into the territory of a new understanding.

So perhaps the full solutions for the maths of this universe are available once we find a way to observe it from an outside frame of reference.

[Vyn]

... once we find a way to observe it from an outside frame of reference.

Indeed, x2.

I feel like we, as a species running around on this planet, lack the capacity to do so.

Perhaps, for human beings, death is the transfer function that allows us to gain that capacity.

It's like my dogs know the difference between me walking out the front door to do yard work and walking out the front door to go to work - that's where their understanding begins and ends. In the first case, they know I'm going to come back in the house soon. In the latter case, they know I'm going to be gone for much longer, and their behavior changes based on that.

But they lack the capacity to understand why. I can't seem to convince them that when I leave for work that I will actually be returning and they don't have to have a spaz attack not wanting me to leave. They don't understand that I have to go to work so I can make money so I can buy them dog food. And they lack the capacity to ever understand that. I've tried discussing basic economics with them, but they just lick me.