Baddogma's Other Meta Cafe- Polite Discussions About Scientific Mysticism and General Weirdness

a reply to: Peeple

Thats what she said?!

a reply to: Reverbs

That's why I have a tablet.
How have you been?

a reply to: Peeple

not the best. October was the worst month Ive ever had.
I wouldn't even want to say it. but some of the lighter notes are broken foot, eviction looming, no job, and a breakup.

then theres the REAL #..

other than ThAt Im Reverbsy I guess.

a reply to: Reverbs

Oh #. You'll handle it.
Reverbsy-style

a reply to: Peeple

Yes of course.

some how.

a reply to: Reverbs

Just hahaha..



beautiful.

I didn't even say it yet!?

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

2020! Haha, year of Cpt. Hindsight.


And a joke, just because it's hard to stand on one foot

or no foot.

Lots of foot stuff happening...

How is everybody?

I'm thinking the most captivating text is Revelation. The "figuring it out" process is on the way.
At the same time I doubt it's possible for anybody to precisely describe the future. Including the godlike alien/s.
There was that push at one time, that if you'd understand enough, it would click and the future will be visible. The next grail, philosopher's stone, whatever. The treasure of knowledge.
Which brings me back to Asimov: it would all be a possibility and the further in the future you want to calculate uncertainty increases.
So how likely is it some guy 96CE was spot on, especially since he couldn't have grasped the things we do and how it all looks, if he had seen it?

I'm thinking some sort of olympics as test for where we all stand is the most likely. Takeshi's Castle is sending the four grunts to stress us, see how we'd really act if the shtf.
The jar is just for tough cookies, the others get eaten.
And that's again biology. There's no endless growth, populations collapse, ask the rabbits. Survival of the bestests adaptist.
And little bunnies thrive until the Island is full and bamm collapse again.

The only thing that makes sense is to write manuals and formulary and collect every DNA we can get our hands on. Wait for after the storm, prepare a meaningful starter kit for the little ones and their children, because if "sin" is a universal crime we're all #ed. Every adult would be up for grabs for "demons", just the children would make sense, right?
Even if the rapture is code for mass abductions, with spaceflight for some time, children would make the most sense.
They would adapt better and quicker to the new beings feeding them and pampering them and educating them in their interest.
I'd say older than 12 and you're screwed, like us.

But what's up with the beast and what did he mean with horns? Who knows...

My whole point is nobody can predict everything even if you can analyse down to the smallest scale. Because the only story that is going on is billions of autobiographies which stay chaotic.
But god sees and hears everything, so I assume besides the overwhelming amount of intellectual spam he has to sift through he would always and everywhere first hand updates. Godlike alien/s watch you poop.
Because that will be how your worth will be weighed, in your mind.
That's why "it" puts us through stressful experiences, even if you look at it as act of evolution at some point the gardener needs to take out the weed.
I believe we are not the crown of the universe. Not the top dog in our hood even.
But I also believe the objective is obvious: can you survive? And stay a tough cookie?
So yes personally I am one of those who thinks the majority of mankind has to die. Not because I want it but because it's logical.
Humans 2.0 are our destiny. That's something we can't fight. That's the end of us.
But I can see that if travelling back in time would be possible the objective would be to find the best and brightest as foundation. ( Asimov)

General weirdness!

Went to the coffee shop and got my drink. One of the songs that played while I waited was Pablo Cruise and there shmooth 70’s song, Love Will Find A Way.

Sing some of words to myself on the way to work...

But it’s alright, once you get past the pain...

I leave work early to do things like pay bills. In the mall, what do I hear? Yup, that song is playing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So I go have lunch. Finish up and sipping on a stout and what song comes on?!?!!

Twice is nothing weird but 3 times?? In 8 hours?

Universe you have my attention!!



ETA: And Happy New Year as well!

(no ‘fireworks’ emoji so I drop the F-bomb, muthas! lol)

@Peeple – Love the flower, simple yet effective. And Flying Tiger, yes! I came across them the first time I went to Madrid and then they opened a shop here a couple of years back. I got my son some really cool stocking fillers from there, and their bags of wooden beads are a bargain.

@Reverbs – Screaming plants – I wonder, don’t you, to whom, or what, they are screaming?!
And, James Clerk Maxwell! I’ve missed some great conversations here. They had a vote in the UK not long back to decide a famous scientist to adorn the new £50 note. I put in a glowing recommendation for Maxwell but Faraday won out. Not a terrible choice but I think a retrospective one. Faraday is where we were, Maxwell is where we’re going. Love that man’s mind!

@Peeple – Is life’s purpose “improving”? I sometimes think of it, in it’s blandest sense, as being about the effective rearrangement of matter, but that’s really just what preserves life here on Earth in the biosphere, although they seemingly operate in the wider, macro and universal sense – seemingly all matter has taken other forms previously, it may even have gone through a series of transmutation to reach it’s current state, and be facing even more. Anyway, do you think that maybe “improving” is a little subjective or a little too subjective because of the high degree of subjectivity we as humans have evolved as interfaces with the system?

@Peeple – Golly, you have been at the hard thinking. I don’t believe that there is anything logical about people having to die. We have the brain and the technological expertise developed from that brain to evade disaster. Totally. Unfortunately there is a very illogical movement of people who believe that it is okay to hoard wealth and resources, and who do not feel the least bit able to adapt and change, their actions continue to take the lives of millions and that will only continue exponentially until they see the error of their ways and or, that rug is pulled from under them. The tide has already turned, but we’re by no means out of the woods yet.

There is a really interesting Joe Rogan interview with Paul Stamets where he, quite reluctantly, talks about “seeing in the fourth dimension”. In terms of revelatory experiences, he’s pretty measured and what I particularly love about it is his own discomfiture with the experience. For that reason alone, I place him head and shoulders above McKenna. He doesn’t have an explanation, just a best guess, it’s a best guess grounded in this reality (as heavily subjective as it is for us on a sensory level) and this time. Revelations, the Biblical text, is not grounded in this time, nor are the majority of the commentaries, including Newton’s, of terrific relevance, though interesting none the less. James Clerk Maxwell’s would be better but I am not sure what if anything he published on Revelations. I kind of lost interest in “revelations” once I’d had my own.

Hello All Cafetarians - especially TEOTs who I didn't manage to reply to in any of the above - good to see you are all keeping on, keeping on – for better or worse. I didn’t intend to take a break, I’ve had much parenting to do and other such things. Time moved on. Can’t say that I’ll be around much, things are on going and there truly are not enough hours in the day but I haven’t gone. I’m the bad penny and I always turn up again eventually.

Take care of yourselves.

a reply to: KilgoreTrout

Numpty!

It is Alan Turing not Faraday who is to grace the new 50 quid note. Maxwell evidently has a Scottish note bearing his image. I like the Turing choice better than my imagined Faraday one. It doesn't make up for it, we owe him a great deal more, for stomping out his will to live.

Perhaps Maxwell was never an option - being too Scottish for a Bank of England note. Either way, I was wrong and if there is one thing I enjoy it is pointing that out.



Watched a good documentary about quantum entanglement (The Quantum Riddle, BBC iPlayer) last night. It was punctuated throughout by the comment that the mathematics was just so "elegant". I would have thought, with my little and unreliable mind, that that would be a dead giveaway that it doesn't quite describe the reality we're trying to describe. Elegance, much like beauty, is kind of ephemeral, or fleeting. But perhaps my mind is just too messy to take in the true significance of those elegantly captured moments and possibilities.

a reply to: KilgoreTrout

Susan Hossenfelder "Lost in maths" I believe. Talks about that elegant problem


on the run

originally posted by: Peeple
a reply to: KilgoreTrout

Susan Hossenfelder "Lost in maths" I believe. Talks about that elegant problem

What she said. Exactly!

I think you're just helping me to confirm my own bias though

Around the beginning of December last, I started having recurring dreams about my teeth falling out. I didn't think too much of it until it went into repeat. According to a variety of sources, loss of teeth can be associated with some kind of real world loss. I eventually decided that my problem was that I had got to the bottom of the box and it was my hope that had gone. It was kind of devastating in a way, created a depression that I hadn't felt in quite a while, but when I pushed through that I found myself with a clean slate. Hope wasn't helpful, it was holding my ankles, pulling me back under the surface.

I haven't had a dream about my teeth falling out since.

Anyway, I feel that we have a little too much faith and hope in the ability of maths to get us out of the problems were in. It can certainly be a big help, particularly for the purpose for which we designed it, to manage complex human systems but it is still just a tool that requires wielding in a useful and purposeful way.

I think that what Hossenfelder points out, the seperating of stuff to make it appear elegant and beautiful, or neat and tidy, is riddled with issues. We have spent centuries taking nature apart, refining and 'perfecting' it without first taking the time to understand the whole. We have made this our purpose. Neat and tidy isn't natural, nature creates patterns that are chaotic and disordered. In terms of changing deeply, we need to assess how we define beauty and elegance, and why we find symmetry so appealing. Just because some of our behaviours are so ingrained as to be almost instinctive, most likely because they have in the past served us well in the survival race, doesn't mean that they will always serve that purpose. Our instincts are not always the right impulses to follow, hence why we developed the higher brain functions that allow us to engage rationale. Perhaps our desire for symmetry and possibly order, are ripe for an over-haul?

I don't know but I don't think reading Hossenfelder is going to challenge my perception on this one, do you?

It has not been asked for but the topic has been breached, so here we go (all my opinion/feeling on the subject. Nobody can claim right or wrong... if they can explain their thoughts)...

Math exists outside of human thought. That is why we would be able to communicate with Them. And that is why the Close Encounters scene works: music and math are related.

Language, species, atomic organization,... doesn’t matter. An “integer” will be the same in any representation system (I think crop circles are a method to try and “teach” us “Their” version of math).

Math always bounces to Euclid. The guy organized thought and methods to reach an observation without belief being involved. That is what, as we know it, provides.

It is not man made. It is universal.

But it is not the be all end all of explaining the world. Just a way to keep bias (I.e., dogma) out.

Knowledge is power.

Deny ignorance. Learn knowledge and better yourself (a bit). But if you are on the intuitive side, then go ahead! That has places too!

Anyway, my ha’f penny of what I have seen!

Ta da!

Universe provides via MetaCafe! Regular, not decaf. Black, like my soul...

Quantamagazine.org - Secrets of Math From the Bee Whisperer
Sub-line: "As Scarlett Howard taught honeybees to do arithmetic, they showed her how fundamental numbers might be to all brains."

She taught honey bees how to "add 1" to a group of figures by a color. She also taught them to "subtract 1". They had to answer the math problem to get a sugar water reward. She then wondered if they would understand the concept of "zero" and they did!

Birds do it, bees do it...

a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

We summoned the Mighty Knight of Math! Defender of the geometric realm! Champion from the Lands of Algebra! Hero of stochastic!


And the critique is not against counting that numbers matter, cats counting their kitten etc is not the thing that's been questioned.
Just that math overtook physics and not to the benefit of better understanding the universe.
In physics maths is the bias/dogma. Just look at the mathfiction it lead to, inventing 11 dimensions (maths works), parallel universes (maths says at least a billion, if not infinite) and that's just not doing anything to explain the world or anything we actually perceive.

Look at Newton super elegant maths, close but not quite right.
Einstein the be all end all of elegant maths, but also where physics left the realm of observable testable phenomenon ie science...

It's like the statement "all humans have two legs" it feels good, but it's technically false. The same is true for our calculations, it works mostly approximately always but ... consider the expceptions and the house of cards falls.

a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

Math always bounces to Euclid. The guy organized thought and methods to reach an observation without belief being involved. That is what, as we know it, provides.

Have you heard of non-Euclidian geometry? You will when the stars are right and R'lyeh rises from the sea.

a reply to: Skid Mark

How did we get to non=Euclidean geometry? By using the logic and methods of mathematics devised in The Elements.

Through logical reasoning it was shown that Euclid was not the be all, end all. The same thing happened to Pythagoras and his system of thought. What was logically proven was that there are irrational numbers and geometry of spherical spaces allow the breaking of Euclid's straight line never crossing itself.

The wonderful thing about Euclid's logical system, is that even as it proved itself wrong, it still continues to be valid! How many other things in the world can say that? We are so hardwired to binary thinking that if some idea is wrong then everything from that idea is wrong. In Euclid's case, it was more "incomplete" than wrong.

Just like extending integers with zero and negative numbers, then adding in rational numbers then finally real numbers (that have an imaginary part! LOL!), we extend the reach of our logical self.



Everyone remember the spider extending its senses by use of its web? That the brain is extended beyond the friendly confines of the skull?

Researchers at Columbia and Harvard University have found that butterfly wings are not simply lifeless membranes. Instead, they are riddled with networks of living cells that act like mechanical and temperature sensors.

This allows butterflies to respond quickly to changes in sunlight, thereby protecting their fragile wings from overheating.

ZMEscience.com - Butterfly wings are alive and double as hi-tech sensors.

The article goes on to say that these sensors help the butterflies choose a flight pattern. It is like a different set of eyes!

How's that for extending your brain?!

Now, if spiders and now butterflies (and probably ant colonies) all extend their brains... and math is outside of us... and we mix up the cookie dough... then our quantum world is the universe extension of everything! Even if we can't see it, or, our brain automagically removes it from our attention, it always there!

All I need now is the phone number for the Akashic library to renew my library card!!

a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

I posted about the educated bees several months ago, right here on this thread. Yes, bees, just like us, can be taught how to use abstract symbols to define values, however...

“They’re laminated so we can clean them with ethanol, because bees will scent-mark,” said Howard. “They’ll do anything to cheat the tests. They’re smart! They’ll mark the correct answer. Bees are not as simple as we used to think they are. Or even as some people still think they are.”

...Ms Howard has it the wrong way round, the number system is cheating, easy food in return for "performing" and should those bees try it out in the "wild" I should imagine it would be an ultimately fatal strategy to adhere to unless it was coupled with their bio-chemical one. It should though assist us in further domesticating bees, more likely than not, the work she is doing will attract funding from fruit growers who depend on bees for their production. Domestication has a tendency to reduce general smarts in preference for specific smarts, or rather an ability and willingness to follow the rules. Following the rules isn't always an indication of intelligence.

Hannah Fry did a curious little info-documentary where she and other mathematicians discussed whether mathematics was created by man or an inherent quality of the universe/existence. She asked eminent minds their opinion, they were roughly divided, one belief or the other, some in between. Understandable. As long as they do not allow such beliefs to interfere with their work and findings, I don't suppose it matters too much, until it matters. Labouring from a position of belief, trying to prove your belief, one way or another, leads to flawed findings. We have evolved in a bio-chemical environment and that has constructed, and constrained, our perceptions.

Our ability to abstract information, to condense it and use 'shorthand' to express it and scrutinise it, to create records of information and to communicate them through time and space, and to create mathematical models of the realities that we experience, has revealed 'patterns'. These patterns can be communicated, demonstrated and tested, the complexity of the interactions and relationships that create such patterns simplyfied into concise equations. It's an amazing a remarkable tool. It has saved countless lives, it allows for all the complexity of human life and it forms the basis of everything that is "life as we know it".

'It' has the ability to answer all our questions, but we still have to formulate the questions, when 'it' starts asking questions, then I might sway more to your side of thinking. In the meantime, all that traipsing around museums, and there are few things that thrill me more than a yellowed old bone, incised with lines of little knicks, or a piece of ochre, criss-crossed into diamonds. We've been counting, adding and subtracting, and dividing and timesing for at least 35,000 years. 35,000 years at it and we have accomplished teaching it to bees. Our activities are also driving those that rely on the 'wild' into extinction. That's what comes from avoiding the bio-chemical nature of our existence and getting all over-excited about physics and maths and thinking it can 'save' us.

As I said, I've lost hope and am therefore indifferent to both sides of the argument. Is it useful? Yes it most certainly is and yeah, we can probably teach it to an 'alien' species, they only have to be as intelligent as me and the bees.

End of discussion. You're free to believe what you like.

a reply to: KilgoreTrout

end of discussion

Haha I missed you

Anyhoo yesterday I read T.C. Boyle's The Terranauts which got me interested in Psychological Hibernation. All very fascinating stuff.
And proves my point the biggest issue we are facing is the human factor in all our endeavours.
From experience I know humans are cockroaches when they got a goal, a carrot dangling in front of their noses.
I think that was the reason why "they" up to L.Ron all are centered around an Utopia to fight for. And we've lost that, but we really need that.
Because currently the answer to unfullfilled emotional/mental needs is distraction and that makes (probably) us more susceptible to panic and general negativity.

Just rambling fishing for opinions