The Most Critical Question!

[LaurieAG]

Hi Anssi,

 

Actually one of the good things about writing this type of poetry is that different people can interpret it in different ways.

 

In a way I can be sure that people who take the wrong interpretation filter themselves out of gaining anything from the communication. Their minds have snapped shut because of their perception of the author of the poetry as being either a madman or an idiot (a bit strange really because the major differences are mostly political).

 

The real message can get through to those who can put aside their perceptions while those who can't resort to ignore-ance.

 

I don't mind even though sometimes it's a bit like the old Irish 'Bann of the Birds', where they are the only ones who understand.

[AnssiH]

:hihi: Funny, half the time you say something like "you need to go read DD's analysis and catch up before we can consider your objection" and now you say "you are jumping ridiculously far ahead. Please don't do that." That's too good :)

 

Yes, sometimes I'm implying you need to read DD's analysis with more thought, and yet other times I'm saying you shouldn't jump ridiculously far ahead without thinking. How crazy of me.

 

You are saying things that just make it clear we are not communicating so I don't want to generate more noise by making another attempt.

 

Rade, excuse me for not responding, for the same reason.

 

-Anssi

[AnssiH]

Alright Qfwfq and lurkers, I'll continue with the assumption that you pretty much understand what I've been trying to say this far.

 

Let me first make a comment about the OP;

 

So the real issue here is communicating the actual problem you and I have in mind. I think you find my work worth reading for the simple reason that it answers a question you had already asked yourself long before we had any interchanges.

 

...

 

The best I can do is to point out that the idea that our world view is created to explain our perceptions is an absolutely ridiculous hypothesis. Perceptions clearly cannot be defined prior to the existence of a world view and the world view has to be based on something.

 

Based on the ruckus in this thread, I would say is he pretty much spot on there. I think the reason me and DD are capable of communicating with each others so easily is because we both are used to look at this from the perspective that world views are prediction mechanisms, not "pictures of reality".

 

It is problematic to explain anything about this if the other party keeps randomly regressing back to the idea that world views must correspond to the true structure of reality in order to be valid. I.e. to the idea that the meaning of the information must be known, before valid predictions can exist, or before it can be perceived "correctly". Some of the most famous philosophical problems exist because of the persistent existence of this exact assumption, hidden inside the problem one way or another.

 

So let's try to keep it explicitly in mind, that we are more properly talking about representations of some predictable aspects of reality. I.e. we are always aiming at "valid predictions", never at "correct meaning". There are some interesting issues to be pointed out:

 

---

- What some information means to you, must be a function of your world view.

- Your world view must be a function of what some information means to you.

 

The ONLY measure we have for the validity of our understanding, is our ability to produce valid expectations about the future.

---

 

So any set of definitions that can produce valid expectations, is to be considered a valid world view. That is my definition of "valid world view".

 

Conversely, the actual existence of any individual defined entity cannot be proved via this kind of validity, be it "the God" or "an electron". We can only prove whether an interpretation with those terms produces valid expectations.

 

To put this in terms of "world views as survival mechanisms", the usefulness of such survival mechanism is entirely connected to the validity of its predictions, not to its ontological correctedness. It is useful to be able to handle the reality as a simple predictive model; one which consists of a set of simple entities that exhibit simple and predictable behaviour. That model is how the survival machine perceives reality. It never becomes relevant whether that model/perception is actually "true to reality".

 

But if we can't prove whether some defined entity exists, then what are empirical observations? We validate

something

after all.

 

Any perception/observation is a case of interpreting some information in some manner, thus the supposed meaning of that "observation" is a function of that interpretation. Or rather, the fact that some part of some information is seen as "such and such observation" at all, is a function of your current world view. An empirical observation is never a neutral measurement of reality; it does not actually verify whether the terminology of a given world view is true to the actual meaning of the information. It rather gives you results in the terminology you have already chosen i.e. in the terminology of your world view.

 

That is why there always exists so called "theory-dependence of observations". I find it interesting that this issue was not in the common awareness of scientific community until the work of Kuhn at the sixties. Still today you very often see people making various arguments about the existence of some entity based on the prediction-wise validity of their own terminology where that entity exists.

 

If you follow an argumentation between two people who do not share the terminology of reality, but both have nevertheless managed to explain the same information to themselves, it becomes quite clear how every defined entity in their world views are dependent of a whole slew of associated definitions, which all need to be understood correctly, before anyone can understand what their definition of some individual entity really is. (And commonly the discussion is mostly about how they view these associated definitions; i.e. their defenses always rely on some very specific categorization of some other aspects of reality)

 

Together your particular set of definitions constitutes a self-coherent specific interpretation of some information, but it does not mean there cannot exist a different self-coherent set of definitions, which generates equally valid predictions for the same information. For instance, anyone who understands relativity, should understand that the definitions that give the perspective of Minkowski spacetime, are in large part a convention; a different set of definitions can be validly used, and doing so would just give different sort of perspective to the same issue.

 

This ability to generate different self-coherent sets of definitions arises directly from the facts that 1. We do not know the explicit meaning of the underlying information, and 2. Our world views must be seen as valid as soon as they correctly predict reality; because that is the only verification method we actually have.

 

Another way to look at this is to understand that - against all pretense - our world views never actually connect to any explicit knowledge about reality. They simply cannot because the terminology needs to be chosen before any so-called knowledge can be understood. If you follow the defending arguments about the existence of our defined entities, it should become evident that our ideas of reality are always exclusively supported by other ideas from our world view, and sometimes we forget that our world view really is just a self-supporting circle of beliefs, and other valid circles of beliefs always exist.

 

That also makes the original problem quite solvable. A general AI system for instance, it just needs to be able to generate a self-coherent predictive model about some aspects of some information, and that serves as its "understanding of reality". At no point the system needs to gain any explicit knowledge about the meaning of the information itself.

 

As a side note, this also explains why people with artificial visual sensory systems will, after a learning period, start to perceive that information in the familiar terminology of a 3 dimensional reality, as oppose to just "dots" that they'd need to consciously translate into visual information. Initially the input information may even be experienced as mere noise, but after a while the brain manages to interpret it in a terminology of simple elements with simple predictable behaviour. Those defined elements come as a side product of the employed prediction mechanism.

 

Now, when there exists different valid ways to understand something, what do we call that? Semantics.

 

The fact that the most fundamental defined concepts of our world views are always a matter of semantics, leads us directly to Korzybski's "general semantics", i.e. to the fact that everything in our representation of reality contains semantical facets; everything is understood in some self-coherent terminology.

 

Also this leads directly to the solution for Searle's "chinese room" argument.

 

His argument is that following the translation instructions does not entail the actual understanding of chinese language. True, that wouldn't. Then he concludes that semantical understanding is inherent human feature that cannot be replicated via mechanical set of instructions. Not so true.

 

Note that he made a hidden assumption that there is "a correct meaning" to the information being translated, and that assumption is why this problem exists in his mind.

 

Consider a room which is closer to what our world views actually are. A room where the instructions to be followed are not translation instructions for the input data, but rather instructions for categorizing the information so to generate a continuously improving predictive world model about the input information. It's all done for the purpose of merely becoming able to predict the input information - whatever it may be - not so much for the purpose of understanding the explicit meaning of the information.

 

Now the problem is rather in having mechanical instructions that generate a "semantical world view", i.e. ANY self-supporting set of defined entities, cast to "explain" that information. Then that set of definitions does, quite literally, constitute "an understanding of the information"! The fact that the underlying instructions are simply mechanical set of instructions that are "mindlessly followed", is not different from us trying to generate predictions about reality and always, without an exception, making the choices that appear to lead to most desirable future for ourselves.

 

It is quite easy to draw parallels to all kinds of human communication and human behaviour and physics theory issues from here, but this is getting quite long and perhaps hard to follow so I'll spare you with what this implies about another famous philosophical problem; the hard problem of consciousness. I'll talk about that little bit later. Or perhaps someone already figured it out?

 

-Anssi

[AnssiH]

Actually one of the good things about writing this type of poetry is that different people can interpret it in different ways.

 

Well yeah this is an example of how we infer meaning from things semantically. The meaning of each word depends on the context it appears in, and we all judge it against our own world view. In the example you gave, everyone finds themselves stretching the meaning of the words one way or another, until they strike upon an interpretation that appears to make some sense or carry some meaning that is relevant against their world views. Certainly people with different backgrounds infer different meaning, and those who manage to see it in such light that it tickles their fancy, they see some value in it.

 

This just reminds me of having read The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, which to me I appears to be meant as a criticism against various sorts of conservative religious values, so I suppose it is also something that some people today would find quite meaningful as interpreted against their modern world views, even though the author never knew anything about any of that.

 

Well, this is all somewhat related to what I wrote in the previous post but I also hope it wouldn't confuse things too much.

 

-Anssi

[Qfwfq]

Well, this is all somewhat related to what I wrote in the previous post but I also hope it wouldn't confuse things too much.

Perhaps in the specific sense that it applies to your previous post.

 

I did not find excessive difficulty in understanding the various points of that post but I find that you sew things together with no logical rigour and many semantic pitfalls, to draw dubious conclusions.

[AnssiH]

I find that you sew things together with no logical rigour and many semantic pitfalls, to draw dubious conclusions.

 

That is most certainly true. I would say DD's attempt is quite a bit more analytical and uses more explicit logic, but either way communicating these sorts of issues is somewhat difficult, with all the semantical complications involved...

 

I'll have few more comments to make and I think I'll stick with similar tentative argumentation style. Like you say, at least it's easy to follow.

 

-Anssi

[Doctordick]

Another way to look at this is to understand that - against all pretense - our world views never actually connect to any explicit knowledge about reality. They simply cannot because the terminology needs to be chosen before any so-called knowledge can be understood. If you follow the defending arguments about the existence of our defined entities, it should become evident that our ideas of reality are always explicitly supported by other ideas from our world view, and sometimes we forget that our world view really is just a self-supporting circle of beliefs, and other valid circles of beliefs always exist.

Anssi, I just thought I should post something to indicate that I am still reading this “trashed” thread. Sorry I have not been posting but my system has been acting flaky and I have been very busy trying to get things the way I want them (bought a new machine – I hate Windows 7 but they won't refund on the operating system so I am trying to set up a dual system as, if I paid for it, I ought to be able to keep it – its been a lot of fun :lol: ).

 

Anyway, for anybody reading this, I agree with Anssi one hundred percent. He used the word “understand” and I would like to comment on that. How does one come to the conclusion that “understanding” of something has occurred? If one is trying to understand an explanation, one asks questions until the answers are no longer unexpected: i.e., one already thinks they know the answer and is no longer surprised by the actual event. Likewise, if a teacher is trying to determine if a student understands a presentation, they also ask questions and then compare the answers obtained with what they would have expected from someone who understood the subject.

 

The point is that “expectations” are the central issue of understanding itself. This brings up another issue apparently missed by most everyone who has posted to this thread (Anssi excepted of course). Others have continually brought up issues they believe are more critical than the issue of explanation itself while in fact whatever they bring up itself needs to be understood and understanding cannot occur without the existence of an explanation.

 

It follows (as the night the day) that the most critical concept to be developed is called “an explanation”. Without a solid understanding of exactly what “an explanation” is, no other concept is significant. The issue I am trying to bring to the forefront is the fact that “an explanation” needs to be carefully defined and the consequences of that definition need to be carefully examined.

 

That is the only real issue I am trying to bring forth and it seems to be an issue none of you want to think about.

 

Anssi, I deeply appreciate your assistance with this cause.

 

Have fun -- Dick

[Qfwfq]

How does one come to the conclusion that “understanding” of something has occurred?

Having a model that the something turns out to be fully compliant with can be called an understanding of that something.

[Doctordick]

Having a model that the something turns out to be fully compliant with can be called an understanding of that something.

Do you really not comprehend how idiotic that response is? First, you cannot "know" that your model is "fully compliant" with anything other than your current interpretation of the information available to you and second (more in line with my complaint concerning the trash posts to this thread), just exactly how do you propose to determine that compliance anyway? Can you not comprehend that without “expectations” you have no model of anything?

 

Again, I find your comments silly and apparently made without a thoughtful foundation of any kind. Mostly you remind me of these simple minded AI programs which just grind out responses from preexisting data files. Are you real or are you nothing more than a cheap AI program?

 

Knowledge is Power

But all power can be abused and the most popular abuse of the power of knowledge is to use it to hide stupidity.

All I ask is that you think about things before you post. Do you think that is really such a big thing to ask?

 

Have fun -- Dick

[lawcat]

OMG, DD you are still at this. Here is your problem, trivialized genuinely: how can we have an output without any input? DD, you deny experience. You set up a world of blackness, deafness, no sensory capacity, and then ask how can we know anything for sure. Well, your set up is abstract, it does not exist, and therefore the answer to the original question is no, it is not worth exploring..

[LaurieAG]

Hi Doctordick,

 

Do you really not comprehend how idiotic that response is ? First, you cannot "know" that your model is "fully compliant" with anything other than your current interpretation of the information available to you and second (more in line with my complaint concerning the trash posts to this thread), just exactly how do you propose to determine that compliance anyway? Can you not comprehend that without “expectations” you have no model of anything?

 

Do you really not comprehend how idiotic that response is ? First, you cannot "know" that your model is "fully compliant" with anything other than your current interpretation of the information available to you and second (more in line with my complaint concerning the trash posts to this thread), just exactly how do you propose to determine that compliance anyway? Can you not comprehend that without “expectations” you have no model of anything?

 

Actually Doctordick, my complaint was that in response to my very first post to you (3 versions of Hypography ago) you chopped out the offending written paragraph and obfuscated it with slippery maths.

[Qfwfq]

EDIT: Laurie he wasn't addressing a complaint of yours.

 

Actually Lawcat, he is talking about how we interpret sensory input, which isn't to be confused with the actual poltergeist, or ding an sich or the Tao or Buddha Mind or whatever.

 

First, you cannot "know" that your model is "fully compliant" with anything other than your current interpretation of the information available to you and second

Dick, I've been through all that with Anssi, ages and ages of misunderstanding before he could see that I wasn't making undefendable ontological assumptions or whatnot. Tell me this: What is the something (in your previous post, of which you want to test whether "understanding" has occured), and what is the "information available to you" (in your last post)? Also, what's the difference between what you call "my current interpretation of it" and what I call a "model" that it's compliant with?

 

Dick, do you really not comprehend how idiotic that response was? Can you not put a bit of thought into your replies? Can't you be better than a cheap program that keeps printing out the same bloody error messages whenever input has a typo or doesn't exactly fit the BNF's that it defines syntax with?

 

The method gotoHell() is undefined for the type Class<capture#3-of ? extends Throwable>

 

Can you not comprehend that without “expectations” you have no model of anything?

Bin through that too with Anssi, in the end he got off the hook by saying we must choose an ad hoc definition of “expectations” and "future" so that we can use these terms even when talking about understanding, for instance, a manuscript. How would a student reckon whether he has "understood" a text, before any teacher has questioned him on it?

[AnssiH]

So I take it when you said;

 

Having a model that the something turns out to be fully compliant with can be called an understanding of that something.

 

that was essentially a rephrasing of what DD said, in your own terminology? I.e. "turns out to be fully compliant" is referring to some process of "asking questions" and verifying whether your expectations are met?

 

I hope everyone understands that the ability to ask questions, have expectations, and verify the answer, always implies there is some underlying information you first do not know, but which becomes known (upon verifying your expectations).

 

Our world views are these kinds of logical constructions, and it is these kinds of logical constructions that I want to discuss, and thus that is how I defined "world view". The objection that in doing so I am making an undefendable assumption is pretty ridiculous; all I've stated is that I want to talk about constructions that produce validatable expectations, and that I call those constructions "world views".

 

The idea that not all world views are like that, is just to say that there can exist a world view which does not allow any questions to be asked or verified. Such constructions are simply not what I would call world views at all, because they don't have anything in common with the constructions that we use to "understand" reality.

 

The critical point I was getting at was that this kind of "understanding" does not entail that your understanding is using "the correct" terminology in any sense. In any chosen terminology there are always plenty of "epistemological facets", i.e. completely imaginary aspects of your personal terminology, which do not appear in another valid terminology.

 

So this gets us to the issue of "arbitrary ad hoc definitions", we should make sure we view that issue the same way. All the arbitrary definitions that are made in the analysis are such that they do not require any specific properties from the underlying information. Just like the decision to use "base ten" number system, they are just arbitrary terminology choices. In making those definitions, DD is not attempting to argue that they are necessary components of understanding. He just argues (ultimately), that the existence of such definition in our specific world views, does not actually tell us anything about reality. They are just epistemological choices, i.e. methods of "understanding" anything undefined.

 

For instance, when I said "all world views are constructions that generate predictions about the future", here "predictions" and "future" are arbitrary labels. What I'm saying could equally well be read as "all world views generate validatable expectations". The choice to call the "not yet known" information "future" is completely arbitrary, and the only reason I (and DD) call it "future" is because then it corresponds with what each of us would call "my personal future".

 

It doesn't really matter how some specific world view refers to this issue, the fact still stands that any logical construction that generates validatable expectations, will have a property to it which can be understood as "dynamics" or "time" or "motion" or "changes" or some other word. Any specific choice is really just a matter of semantics. Note that your ability to understand dynamics in all sorts of different ways, and your inability to defend the ontological validity of any choice, is a consequence of exactly the fact that these are arbitrary epistemological choices, not results of explicit information from reality.

 

Qfwfq, do you understand what the role of these sorts of arbitrary choices is meant to be? As in, "not necessary, but universally valid".

 

-Anssi

[Qfwfq]

I hope everyone understands that the ability to ask questions, have expectations, and verify the answer, always implies there is some underlying information you first do not know, but which becomes known (upon verifying your expectations).

Alternatively, you might pretend not to know it, while computing the expectations to compare it with. If there were nothing more than this behind the nature of time, and past vs. future, it would mean that the greatest problems we face for our welfare are mere illusions (a quite distinct thing from saying there may be some way to solve them).

 

All the arbitrary definitions that are made in the analysis are such that they do not require any specific properties from the underlying information. Just like the decision to use "base ten" number system, they are just arbitrary terminology choices.

I already cautioned you about confusing this type of thing with choices between non equivalent options.

 

Qfwfq, do you understand what the role of these sorts of arbitrary choices is meant to be? As in, "not necessary, but universally valid".

I understand what you mean them to be, but you are extrapolating between lookalike things.

[Doctordick]

Bin through that too with Anssi, in the end he got off the hook by saying we must choose an ad hoc definition of “expectations” and "future" so that we can use these terms even when talking about understanding, for instance, a manuscript.

You still seem to miss the central point of my presentation. To quote an earlier post you made:

 

I am "merely" saying that drawing expectations about the next data based on the previous involves a tacit assumption.

Yes, indeedy do, it certainly does. It should be clear to you (and everyone else) that you cannot have an explanation without making assumptions concerning ontology. Without a working ontology you can't even think about it. The identification of those “tacit assumptions” is the purpose of the “i” index in the representation of that explanation. The purpose of the “x” index is to reference the same underlying elements without defining them: i.e., without constraining their definition in any way. That is why I use “x”; because what it is that “actually” lies behind the explanation is “unknown”.

 

The problem with your comments is that every time you bring up a specific explanation you tacitly assume that what is represented by the “x” index is what is represented by the “i” index. That amounts to assuming your “ontology” (what is being represented by the “i” index) is valid. Thus, most everything you bring up is off subject; you are most often discussing the “i” index and interpreting it as a representation of the “x” index which is only valid for the specific explanation being represented by “i”. It certainly has nothing to do with my differential equation or the constraints implied by my definition of an explanation. The equation concerns the limitations on that “x” index implied by the very definition of an explanation and is entirely general. Though they end up mapping into the common concepts of space and time (which are quite “ad hoc” in the common world view) they are, in my attack, simple defined indices. These concepts and how they come to apply to one's world view are very different things.

 

How would a student reckon whether he has "understood" a text, before any teacher has questioned him on it?

Are you implying that you need to be questioned by a teacher before you could reckon your understanding of that text?

 

The first word of that text might be “A” and, having read that word, you would have expectations as to what might come next (rather open expectations so to speak). And, having read the next word, the process would continue (your actual expectations being more limited). As you proceed through the text, your expectations grow more and more limited. Eventually you would finish the text and, if you felt you understood the whole thing, you are essentially asserting that what you read is now consistent with your expectations. Essentially, without any expectations, the information is simply, to quote a common phrase, “in one ear and out the other”.

 

If you do indeed believe you understand the text, upon reading another text on the same subject, you would expect to find the text consistent with your expectations and, if it wasn't, you would either presume there was some error in your understanding or that the writer of the second text didn't understand what he was talking about. It is your overwhelming penchant for the latter presumption which Anssi and I find so difficult to deal with.

 

Anssi, I have the distinct feeling that Qfwfq has essentially no idea as to what we are talking about and I suspect it flows from his lack of comprehension of the meaning of my “x” index and the intended generality of my presentation. Bringing up some of his earlier posts,

 

I have called into question the universality of your FE

And how pray tell do you define that “universality”? I define it by the fact that the expectations produced by any valid explanation can be produced by a function [math]\Psi[/math] which is a solution to my equation. Now certainly, invalid explanations (those which yield inconsistencies with extant information) need not be solutions to my equation.

 

What I am talking about are the expectations for the underlying elements referred to by the “x” index associated with that “i” index. You are, without the first thought, overwhelmingly associating that index with your mental view of an ad hoc spacial dimension. Yes, I do show that with the proper assumptions (meaning the common assumptions we make) it can indeed be seen as an equivalent reference but that is no more than showing how my solution to the problem maps right into some very standard “valid” world views. In those views, space and time are ad hoc concepts whereas in my presentation they are no more than defined labels.

 

This does not mean claiming [imath]\cal{F}[/imath] to be unique, there could well be [imath]\cal{G}[/imath] such that [imath]\cal{U}\Rightarrow\cal{G}[/imath] but, if [imath]\cal{U}[/imath] really is universal, then it would imply [imath]\cal{F}[/imath] and [imath]\cal{G}[/imath] being equivalant to [imath]\cal{U}[/imath] and therefore also to each other.

I brought up this post because it tends to bring up the fact that you are confusing my equation with the possible solutions [math]\Psi[/math]. The problem you are overlooking is the fact that finding a general solution to my equation is essentially impossible; furthermore, it isn't put forth as a mechanism for generating [math]\Psi[/math] but rather as a valid constraint on that [math]\Psi[/math]. Before one can find a solution one must make a number of significant assumptions. What solution you find is going to depend upon what assumptions you make. This has utterly nothing to do with the validity of my equation.

 

From your comments concerning logic:

 

The argument form has two premises. The first premise is the "if–then" or conditional claim, namely that P implies Q. The second premise is that P, the antecedent of the conditional claim, is true. From these two premises it can be logically concluded that Q, the consequent of the conditional claim, must be true as well. In Artificial Intelligence, modus ponens is often called forward chaining.

P is my definition of an explanation and Q is my fundamental equation: i.e., thus it is, in the absence of an error, my fundamental equation is true by definition.

 

I have not stated this at all. I discussed how it is that our mind comes to have a worldview.

From my perspective your discussion is totally ridiculous hoo-doo as it invariably makes tacit assumptions which are aspects of that world view you claim to be explaining. You are speaking in terms of the “i” index and ignoring the whole purpose of that “undefined” “x” index. That is exactly what Anssi is talking about when he complains about your presumed ontologies. See turtles references to “I am a strange loop”; that's a pretty good analog of your approach to this thing.

 

Have fun -- Dick

[LaurieAG]

Hi Qfwfq,

 

Laurie he wasn't addressing a complaint of yours.

 

I know that, I was merely pointing out that the statement actally applies to both sides of a communication unchanged. My complaint was to distinguish between what Doctordick wrote and how he hypocritically avoids doing what he says.

 

In Hypography there is an implied expectation that you will not ignore someone if they have a relevant point. I actually read all of Doctordicks new thread(s) and noticed that he had omitted what I had commented about earlier in this latest revision of his 'work'. When you started trying to get the detail out of him I realised what he had done.

 

I actually wonder if this is some sort of attempt by a psych student to fool science people into believing that a contrived modular process, with interchangeable, obscure, out of context and archaic forms with a very simple method of response, was real as a payback for a couple of years ago when some mischiefous software developers wrote a program that produced a paper full of 'in' words that was submitted and published in a respectable journal. (good at rehashing science, philosophy and maths graphics but with a very limited committment to anything else but the predefined outcome in this case)

 

There are several disturbing patterns that run right through Doctordicks arguments from the core of the basic process to how he refutes and the nature of his asides. His degenerate triangle explanation is just a minor fractal element of the larger flaw contained within the entire process and he has never really conceded any wrong.

 

At least the pea and cup scammer shows the peas start position and declares that they are going to do, even if they don't actually do what they said they'd do. When the pea leaves a cup and transfers itself to another cup via the scammers palm the pea can be only argued to be inside a particular 'expected' cup or any another one if the side of the pea touching any boundary of a cup was considered to be inside that cup, or being inside two cups at the same time during the transfer for that matter.

 

The masters of our financial universe just move the pea around in a similar same way so it is time for the application of truthful honest science/maths to anything that looks like a scam because the top 10% masters of our current (expanding) financial universe own more money/assets than the rest of humanity combined.

[Qfwfq]

Goodness Laurie, you're always such a great comunicator, aren't you? :rolleyes: You could strive to better clarify your intent, especially given what your objections about Dick are. The straw in thy brother's eye...

 

Yes, indeedy do, it certainly does. It should be clear to you (and everyone else) that you cannot have an explanation without making assumptions concerning ontology. Without a working ontology you can't even think about it.

My statement was far more fundamental. In whichever manner or by whichever method you draw whichever kind of expectations, the very fact of doing so at all implies making an assumption about the source of the data (about which expectations are being drawn). I discussed this most general assumption with Anssi and you seem to have totally missed it. The assumption is that whatever features of the data you are basing those expectations on is due to something about the nature of the source (as opposed to being mere apophenia). Is that assumption general enough now? I got Anssi to explicitly recognize it.

 

Are you implying that you need to be questioned by a teacher before you could reckon your understanding of that text?

Gee Dick, it almost looked like you were implying this. Well, of course you weren't! I should have known!

 

And, of course, you turn the example into a matter of sequence, of starting with the first letter without yet having seen the following ones. That's not what I meant! The idea was just that all the data is available to your analysis, which you can perform in the order you choose. Of course the manuscript example wasn't the best anyway, because you can always raise your typical objections instead of distilling out what the example is meant to illustrate.

 

How about instead you find a matrix of digits on a paper and you want to check whether it constitutes a correctly solved Su Doku? In this example, which digits are past and which are future at some point of the data-model validation? The answer is of course, whichever you choose, it depends on how you carry out the validation! The only expectation which the model "correctly solved Su Doku" entails is the compliance of the data "matrix of digits" with it but, of course, this is not what you mean when talking of specific expectations that a specific model produces; it makes more sense to call it the general constraint inferred by considering any model at all. Each specific model (with the exception of the one that you call "what is, is what is") will therefore entail further constraints, which we call expectations when we cannot "yet" validate against them.

 

Now of course the "data compliant with model" constraint is just as general as the "due to the nature of" assumption.

 

...or that the writer of the second text didn't understand what he was talking about. It is your overwhelming penchant for the latter presumption which Anssi and I find so difficult to deal with.

I don't see where I gave any indication of such penchant. In this example, you are posing the assumption "on the same subject" which simply means "compliant with the same model" and that's where I would point my finger, rather than just supposing the second author had any such intention, unless it was explicitly stated (in which case I wouldn't assume the error must be on the second author, rather than the first or both). Actually Dick, since I am an author that comes after you on this subject, it seems you're the one that has this penchant.

 

I define it by the fact that the expectations produced by any valid explanation can be produced by a function [math]\Psi[/math] which is a solution to my equation.

I keep repeating that you have not proven this conclusively. Say, Dick, did you appreciate the distinction between choice of notation (such as base ten, which has no bearing on the arithmetic) and choice of a specific mathematical construct (such as [imath]\mathbb{Z}_{n}[/imath], which has its own arithmetic for each value of [imath]n[/imath])?

 

You are, without the first thought, overwhelmingly associating that index with your mental view of an ad hoc spacial dimension.

Actually Dick, I view them more as being on the par with the variables (usually denoted [imath]q_i[/imath]) in defining configuration space in analytical mechanics which, mind, is a pure exercise in mathematics despite originating from the study of physics.

 

I brought up this post because it tends to bring up the fact that you are confusing my equation with the possible solutions [math]\Psi[/math].

Am I? Really? Certainly I'm not looking asking you to find a general solution to your equation and neither do I view it as a mechanism for generating [math]\Psi[/math]. I only say you need to prove that its being a constraint for any given [math]\Psi[/math] being valid is independent of the ad hoc choices that you make, if you hope to persuade plenty of folks about your "and nothing else" claim; the onus of proof is on you. Since this does not require anyone to find a solution, one needn't make any assumptions, but it is relevant to claiming the universal validity of the equation. It would be enough to prove that, under alternative choices or without them, you always get something with the same set of [math]\Psi[/math] solutions.

 

From your comments concerning logic:

Wait, I don't recognize the content of first quote as being mine, but it is the first paragraph of this explanation of modus ponens. Your remark after that quote adds nothing to what has been said, you are simply ignoring the onus of proof for your case of [imath]\cal{P}\Rightarrow\cal{Q}[/imath] in the face of objections.

 

From my perspective your discussion is totally ridiculous hoo-doo as it invariably makes tacit assumptions which are aspects of that world view you claim to be explaining.

I am not "claiming to be explaining" any aspects of any world view when I use specific examples, I am only using them to illustrate general points in the attempt of getting them across (and, quite often, in the attempt of wresting statements out of you or Anssi that make more sense, posed in meaningful terms). Of course, every time you use specific examples, it's prefectly OK isn't it? Only when I do it you cry foul.

 

Mind also that examples are much less use for defending a claim of universal character than for objecting to it.