Defining the nature of rational discussion!

[Doctordick]

Sorry about that! -- Dick :xparty:

[Pyrotex]

I am sorry I have not been quick in responding to this thread but Christmas/ New Years is a busy time...

Human beings are unique in their ability to examine that mountain range of information and think about the situation they find themselves in. The great majority of what they find are the gray rocks of intuitive knowledge; the well established foundation on which everything they think and do is based. (It is reasonable to presume the animals also find themselves in a similar circumstance.) Most of which they are so sure of that there is absolutely no doubt as to its veracity. I suspect animals in general lack doubt entirely, (as do some humans by the way). But it should be clear that this terrain is not reality, it is actually no more than what we think reality is. It is a mental construct; something quite different from reality itself. It is very different from "reality" in that it can be wrong whereas "reality" cannot possibility be wrong (note that animal concepts of reality can also be wrong; in fact, we use their proclivity for certain errors to trap and kill them)....

Yes, things have become busy for me too. I hate writing proposals. :xparty:

 

When I have time, I intend to read through all the posts in this thread. You are saying something that (I think) I agree with. And I also read the Piranha article in Science News and had that flash of "you are close to a great insight".

 

My stance begins with a science fiction story, "The Players of Null-A" by A.E. vanVogt, published around 1945. He paid tribute to a philosopher, Alfred Korzybski in his introduction. Years later, I tracked down Korzybski, who had been quite influential in the 1920's 30's.

 

It was Korzybski who coined the phrase, "The map is not the territory", and created the academic field of General Semantics. His collected seminars from the 30's are incredibly dense with understanding about the workings of the human mind.

 

There IS squirrel logic and there IS golden logic, if I may paraphrase. Korzybski insists that all animals operate by comparing sensory inputs to an INTERNAL MODEL of reality. This is the "map". The external Reality is his "territory". Squirrels use squirrel modeling language to build that map. One might say that different brain cell engrams represent certain elements in the map, say a cat or an acorn. Bacteria have a much simpler map, its only elements being certain chemical gradients and light and maybe certain kinds of touch.

 

Korzybski concludes that at some point in our evolution, these engrams or patterns of brain cell chemistry (elements of the Map), became identified with smaller and smaller elements of the Territory, until they started being identified with specific sounds made by other Humans. Fast forward, and you have Humans whose Maps are now constructed of (ta da!) linguistic elements.

 

The Map element for a "tree" is no longer an engram for a "tree" -- but is constructed of a myriad of linguistic symbols that are arranged in a certain order to represent the "tree" in the Territory, and a different way to represent a "shrub" and a different way to represent an abstract "tree" representing trees in general.

 

We do squirrel logic when we bang together the engrams for "tree" and "rock" and "jump".

 

We do golden logic when we go down a symbolic meta-level to the elements -- not of Reality -- but of our linguistic structures, themselves. Symbols. Language. Logic. Math. Negation. Proof. Induction.

 

so..... have I missed your point?

[ldsoftwaresteve]

DoctorDick:

I am asserting that "explanation" itself is the rock upon which understanding of the universe is to be built.

I think I agree with that completely. It will take me a while to read the link but I will and I'll simply make observations as I go through it and periodically send you what I have.

By the way, I read the paper on Einstein's mistaken use of time and how you too think that gravity is an effect. You are correct, I'm not very knowledgeable with that level of math although the gist seemed to leave some yellowish pebbles on my mole-hill. :)

I like the way you use 'now' to separate events into the past and the future. Just one thing: What if 'time' doesn't exist outside of ourselves, outside of our concept of past and future, outside of our mountain range? What if there is only 'now'? What would be the implications of that? What if there was no 'true time' to be measured? That would mean that time exists only in our heads.

[ldsoftwaresteve]

This was a duplicate post too. There is a bug. It comes back and says "Page not found". I go back and resubmit it and now I have two.

[Doctordick]

To questor: sorry I missed your post of 1/1. I swear it wasn't there when I made my last post. I have a suspicion there is some kind of delay in the software on this site. Both Pyrotex and I have been having trouble seeing our own posts. But, laying that aside, I think you find my statements contradictory because you are putting an implied significance of "value" to my use of the word "gold" when my original purpose in using the term was because of the qualities "rarity" and "beauty" usually associated with gold. When it comes to survival, logic and/or mathematics are about as important as gold jewelry but it is also as delightful. :)

 

But more important, my second comment had to do with the minimum of belief required to perform the deductions I want to carry you through. Any and all other "intuitive" constructs can be laid aside as possibly being erroneous. That fact (that they are possibly erroneous) in no way implies that they don't serve a very serious purpose. Survival is our very first concern and proof that our actions are correct is very much second in importance. :evil:

...where in your rating of incontrovertible truths would you place mathematics?

I don't know that you mean the same thing as I do when I use the word "mathematics". I have a strong suspicion that you don't have a good understanding of mathematics and see it as a collection of facts rather than as I define it: "the invention and study of internally self consistent systems" or a direct tautological extension of logic. That would make it solid gold!

so..... have I missed your point?

Well, yes and no! That's a pretty good answer to any question isn't it? ;) Seriously, I think you have picked up the sense of a lot of things I have said in support of my perspective, but have focused on those issues themselves rather than the issue I am trying to convey. Since you do have a background in mathematics, take a good look at "An Analytical Model of Explanation Itself". As an aside, I might point out the three references given there (I suspect they are easily overlooked). These are links to proofs that the statements made in the sentences superscripted are correct.

We do golden logic when we go down a symbolic meta-level to the elements -- not of Reality -- but of our linguistic structures, themselves. Symbols. Language. Logic. Math. Negation. Proof. Induction.

That's about it except for the issue of actually doing it. Many people don't actually do such things; rather they regurgitate learned sequences of steps without actually thinking about the abstract connections they are making. You know they even have computer programs which can perform mathematical deduction and I wouldn't exactly see that as really being aware of logic. (Perhaps that is no more than prejudice on my part.)

 

Essentially, all I wanted to do is divide what we are aware of into two components: that we can depend upon as absolutely correct and that which could be wrong. (So that I could get around a lot of philosophical garbage ordinarily thrown at my work.):evil:

 

Meanwhile, as I was unaware of Alfred Korzybski and his work, I googled him and did a little reading. Though his interests are essentially outside the subject I am trying to communicate, they are still interesting. In fact, I think one comment he made amounts to a clue to how "squirrel thought" is accomplished and thus an important aspect of AI.

 

"Korzybski noted that we have fewer words and ideas than experiences". Since our words are essentially symbolic labels for concepts essential to our understanding of that mass of gray rock I talk about, his statement is equivalent to saying that the totality of our ideas and experiences can be expressed via a lesser body of information. Essentially, that implies that our world view amounts to a data compressed representation of our experiences. I firmly believe that a universal data compression mechanism would be a fundamental solution to the problem of creating a "world view" and thus a fundamental component of AI. And I have some ideas about how the issue should be attacked.

 

If I were still young, I think it would be a very interesting project. I think we are close to having the hardware required.

 

Have fun -- Dick

[ldsoftwaresteve]

DoctorDick:

Essentially, that implies that our world view amounts to a data compressed representation of our experiences. I firmly believe that a universal data compression mechanism would be a fundamental solution to the problem of creating a "world view" and thus a fundamental component of AI. And I have some ideas about how the issue should be attacked.

Isn't that one of the functions of an abstraction, of a concept? We think in terms of the concept rather than all of the elements in the set which it subsumes. So we need a machine that can take input and perform the abstractions and drop it on the mountain in the right place. That's where you're going in the link I'm working on. I'm trying to figure out how to implement it. :evil: But first I have to understand it. I can't make all the necessary leaps and keep falling into the gorges, even though they are of my own making.

[ldsoftwaresteve]

DoctorDick:

And that is exactly why most everyone seems to avoid thinking about that possibility; they would rather just assume they are right. Their big difficulty is not thinking they can function if they are in error; actually it is quite simple and, actually, they seldom have any real problems with it.

That really is quite funny.

I wish everyone felt that way. I have noticed that most humans cannot operate from the perspective of being wrong. It is an emotionally difficult constraint to accommodate one's life to. It is much easier to just ignore the issue; i.e., not really worry about knowing the "truth".

Self actualization is not a goal many have attained. Knowing that it's ok to be wrong and that one can function in spite of it (as you have so humorously pointed out - we do! :) ) because the truth is they are and they do! ;)

There is a perspective that we are all Gods in our own way and are all indeed quite lonely.

And the only alleviation of that is to be 'visible' to another person, to achieve actual communication - to see inside the other and know what makes them who they are and in turn have them see you. Loneliness is profoundly absolute. We come in that way and we leave that way.

By the way, I'm actually 58. I hope that doesn't affect your willingness to discuss the link.

Should I post your paper and my questions here or should I send them in a private post?

[TIDUSGIYA]

If Anything Is Completly Rational It Is The Word Itself.......

 

Words Hold A Firm Grip On Our Personality...the Big Fat Lie Is That Words Dont Control The Way We Think Or Act....and Words Dont Control Our Emotions Do They....

 

Lies Lies...and So-on... Rationality Is In Its Own Right For Being Just A Word, It Only Makes Sence When Someone Is Trying To Fit In With It, To Be Being Rational With It.

 

Fact...you Call Someone That Doesnt Know You In A Pub When The Drunk A Nasty Name And You'll See Why Words Do Control Our Emotions Also....even In School, Words Conrtol Our Emotions.

 

We Let It Happen To Us Because Knowone Can Allow Them Selves To Be Rational Every Single Minute Of Evey Day Can They......

 

My Advise Is To Just Sit There Being The Quiet One Or Done Be There At All, Be In A Forest And Meditate....????

 

The Truth Is I Enjoy The Idea Of Being Rational.....

 

I Dont Know It All, And If I Believed That I Wouldnt Be Able To Learn To Know It All.

 

?????

[Pyrotex]

...Meanwhile, as I was unaware of Alfred Korzybski and his work..."Korzybski noted that we have fewer words and ideas than experiences". Since our words are essentially symbolic labels... his statement is equivalent to saying that the totality of our ideas and experiences can be expressed via a lesser body of information. Essentially, that implies that our world view amounts to a data compressed representation of our experiences....

I am glad you enjoyed the good doctor K. Some of his insights may be quite useful to your quest. One is that there IS a physical reality "out there" -- the Territory, and that we Humans "live" in the mental models we construct of that reality -- the Map. Korzybski says we have NO access to the Territory. None, zip. We ONLY have access to the Map. That is where we live, think, have our minds, and discuss reality. The construction of the Map by "experiencing" reality is something that happens automatically out of (beyond) our intellectual purview when we are infants.

 

The evolution of mind to sentience occurred as a result of our mental memory units (engrams?) going from being associated with entire experiences or entire specific objects, to being associated with tiny sub-experiences that became "labels". Analogy-- a contractor builds homes out of prefab chunks, wall sections, roof sections, prefab windows with frames, ducting kits, etc. He can only build a small number of house floorplans, perhaps 1,000. But a carpenter, who works entirely with lumber (in standard sizes), nails (iss), saws, hammers, pipe (iss), roof tiles (iss), etc. can design and build a virtually infinite number of house floorplans. Note that the "catalog" of building parts for the carpenter may be larger than for the contractor.

 

Your point about data compression may be off just a tiny bit. This can be seen from the analogy above, if you consider our experiences to be all the unique houses that have been built by our two guys. The "catalog" of building parts used by the carpenter is small, say 100 pages. But the description of all the houses he has built (or could build) runs to entire libraries.

 

This does not mean that you can throw away the libraries and rely on the catalog to specify or describe or list all the possible houses. We may use only 10,000 words, but merely printing out a list of those words does not encapsulate the millions of experiences we have had.

 

The other side of this coin (yours) is that some data compression does occur: the squirrel brain has enough room to store (say) 1,000 experience engrams. Our brains are vastly larger, but 90% of it is used for the catalog of our linguistic symbols. However, this allows us to use the remaining 10% of our brain to describe (reconstitute, recreate) zillions of experiences.

[Turtle]

___Inasmuch as the topic of what I, Turtle, meant to say arose, I have a rational obligation to reply.

___On the matter of making fun of this topic, any jocularity on my part is entirely predicated in Dr. Dicks signature "Have Fun"; I reasonably took it as a directive to action & followed through.

___I have not, nor do I intend this reply to, distract or otherwise mis-represent this thread or its author. I have read every word, many of them numerous times in order to understand the nugget.

___I have some familiarity with mathematics, which is why I asked about a Venn diagram. As far as I know, they have the facility to represent the unions, conjunctions etc. of sets in an algorithmically reliable fashion; moreover as Dr Dick introduced specific sets, I rationally concluded I may construct a Venn diagram to model them.

___As Dr. Dick at one point allowed that this very thread is itself a rational discussion, I look forward to its self-similar continuence.

Have Fun,

Turtle

[Doctordick]

Steve, I hope I haven't upset you by moving the comments you made by private message back to the thread. I think some of those comments are very important and if you misunderstood what I was saying then others probably misconstrued the same issues.

DoctorDick:Isn't that one of the functions of an abstraction, of a concept? We think in terms of the concept rather than all of the elements in the set which it subsumes.

Yes, I would agree; that is essentially what we mean by the term abstraction. Coming up with mental categories (and symbols for the same) for the aspects common to certain collections of significant things.

So we need a machine that can take input and perform the abstractions and drop it on the mountain in the right place.

Yeah, but as you say that's not an easy thing to implement. In order to implement it, you need an abstract idea of what abstraction is all about and that would be to comprehend the purpose of abstraction itself. In essence, the abstraction lays aside the essential aspects of the information which allow us to operate via that lesser body of information Korzybski was talking about. That is, it establishes the elements necessary to an explanation: i.e., allows us to come to conclusions without considering all the known information in its entirety. And, yes, that is exactly where I am trying to go with my analysis.

 

Just as an aside dealing with AI, there is another way to look at the problem of abstraction. First, let us consider the problem of making a prediction based on a situation which exists exactly somewhere in the known information (a rare but significant concern; history does in fact sometimes repeat itself). If it didn't, induction would be worthless. :) If this is the case, our problem is actually quite simple: all we have to do is find that the specific example itself and simply assume the new results will be the same as the old results.

 

That situation can be seen as looking up the solution in the log of all known situations. Or, from another perspective, trying to figure out were we are (at the particular instant) in that log of all known things. Clearly, the more closely the current situation resembles the found situation, the more faith we can put in the idea that what happened last time will happen again. Sort of like looking at a piece of a sentence (or several sentences) and finding where that piece is repeated in the Library of Congress. The longer our sample gets, the more constrained the possibilities are. Given a list of all possibilities and what follows each of them, we can estimate a probability on what the next word will be. As our sample gets large, either we hone down to a particular case or we generate a new entry which appears nowhere. The more data we have in our base (that Library of Congress) the more improbable a "new" entry will occur. (Unless we are talking about a million monkeys on a million typewriters. ;)

 

So what we want is some organized collection specific sequences which occur often enough to be of interest; the reoccurring phenomena are things which can be abstracted. In order to implement such a performance, let our AI device record a log of everything which occurs; both those data events internal to the device itself and obtained external inputs. After a sufficient time (with a complex device), that log can get quite long and involved. As it does so, the probability of repeated patterns rises. Suppose we start compressing that log under the following procedure:

 

We start with a collection of data events in that log which are repeated somewhere else in the log. If compression is viable (that is, if we can replace every entry of that repeated segment with the address of a reference to that sequence [together with some additional information] and obtain a net reduction in storage consumption) it would be possible to build a selection of entries ordered by how often they occur together with a list of most probable following entries (that would be there as additional information to give us our expectations).

 

Now think of that compressed file as a new log to be searched and similarly processed. We know the current incoming data (and our manufactured compression library) so we can generate a list of possibilities as to where we might be in that log. Taking a list of the most probable states, we can predict our expectations and construct the possible branches we might be on. Those predictions can be used to step the process further. So we generate a number of possible sequences into the future.

 

Within those sequences occur some internally generated events. The importance of those internally generated events is that they are under the control of the device itself. The device is thus able to evaluate the desirability of possible end points and choose it's activity to make whatever it "desires" to occur to be more probable than the alternatives. Ah, but how do we decide which outcome is more desirable? How about the result which leads to better data compression? Think about that one for a while. What is abstraction anyway?

 

When we start looking at devices with multigigibyte states and logs in the multiterrabyte range with the processing speed of a super computer, the possible outcomes of such a process start to become very interesting. I would also like to point out that such a system could also determine what information was internal and what was external (i.e., the program itself does not need to have that information in the initial set up). Internal events would be events with a very high probability of occurring. That is to say, if the device could control those events, their probability of occuring would be one.

 

This last point has to do with learning how to do something. Learning how to drive a car amounts to discovering the collection of events under one's control which lead to events normally not under control occurring with very high probability. That is to say, one becomes "one with the car" or it essentially begins to be part of the internal device. (It always bugged me when people would tell me "you have to become one with the ..." as if it were a choice when it is really a consequence of learning the skill being referred to.)

Hi Dick. Forgive me for being so slow.

I would call your response quite rapid. Note that I am considerably slower than you. The following comments in blue were part of a private communication but I think they need to be cleared up for everyone.

An abstract model would be an identification of how all explanations are similar. Each term in the model would have to be an abstraction representing the set to which it refers.

I am not sure of exactly what you are saying here. I do not understand the applicability of "representing the set to which it refers". What I would have said would be more like "each 'component' (instead of term) in the model would have to be an abstraction of some essential component which exists in all explanations and displayed the fundamental behavior of that component".

Interesting, you have to use an explanation to explain itself.

Not really. What I am doing is explaining the procedure I went though to isolate those abstract components of an explanation. The object was not to "explain and explanation" but rather to define what constituted an explanation. I have been interested in definition since the third grade when I saw something astonishing in the dictionary. A long story behind it but essentially the teacher told us that it was against the rules to use a word in it's own definition as to do so defeats the purpose of definition (without knowing what the word means, you cannot understand the definition). Now I was smart enough to know that, if you went far enough, any dictionary would be circular but I was curious how long it would take to find a circle. I was too young and ignorant to understand how complex that question really was and I went to the dictionary in the class room to check it out for myself. Since, in my head, where I started made no difference, I started at the beginning. I was astonished when I read the first entry, "a: the first letter of the alphabet; a pronoun ...". I closed the dictionary and went back to my desk and have thought about definition ever since. Most people do not worry about how they come to know the meanings of words. Fundamentally it is equivalent to answering the question, "how do we know what we know about anything?"

“I will begin by pointing out that all “explanations” result in a set which is to be characterized by the explanation.”[/color]

No, the explanation does not result in a set! The idea of an explanation is meaningless without something to be explained. What is significant here is that the most abstract representation of anything is the concept of a set. A "set" can be absolutely anything. I get the feeling you are mixing up the significant roles of components here.

Interesting, that implies that in the one case (‘to’) we can change the landscape of the mountain by filling in the gaps and from what you say below that is performed using our ‘understanding’.

Or create new gaps in that landscape! You have to keep your mind open; the input is information and the output is information. The output may be things you already know, things you didn't know or falsification of things you thought you knew. We all have "expectation" which we can't explain, have learned of explanations which confirm our expectations and we have learned explanations which changed our expectations.

Relational databases can be modified and queried.

I don't know what you had in mind when you wrote this.

An explanation provides the formula for a ‘query’.

Yes and no! Certainly it can be seen as such with regard to known information (the information can be queried), but unknown information cannot be "queried" so the explanation provides something more than a mere "query". The explanation, whether that explanation is right or wrong, yields real expectations for circumstances outside the known information.

(ah, very subtle difference from ‘known’ – I like),

Thank you.

‘understood’, then, implies an abstract on the nature of the set under consideration. If I understand the nature of the set of all locations that a ball in orbit has, i.e. gravity, time, motion, etc. I can predict (have an expectation of) where the ball in orbit will be even though I don’t now know where it will be at some point in the ‘future’. By knowing why and how it behaves over ‘time’, my expectation is that it will be right ‘there’.)

Now I would say that "an abstract on the nature of the set under consideration" is essentially a phrase equivalent to "an explanation" and really doesn't add anything: i.e., one could just as well have said, "'understood', then, implies you can explain it". Remember, my definition of "an explanation" is that it provides a method of specifying your expectations (the "future").

(a function, process, etc.)

Yes! To this and the next couple of statements.

The beginning of my disconnect. Yes, and it is followed by a ‘let’ statement.  We’ve jumped to another level of abstraction. Let "A" be what is to be explained and proceed with the following primitive definitions: 1.A is a set. Tables.2. B is a set, defined to be an unordered finite collection of elements of A. Kitchen tables, Dining room tables, living room tables, patio tables.3. C is defined to be a finite collection of sets B. Indoor tables.

"If you have learned to add two and five without asking "Two and five what?" you already have both feet off the ground--higher than you think. You are now air-born. The rest is just a matter of gaining altitude."

Robert M. Hutchins and Mortimer J. Adler in "Gateway to the Great Books".

 

The issue here is the fundamental nature of abstraction: removing the "real foundation" of a concept without removing the essence of that concept itself thus leaving the "real foundation" an open and unanswered question. You are trying to reestablish a possible "real foundation" for the abstract concept I have proposed. That can be done with my abstract definition as it can be done with arithmetic though what I am doing is a far more complex abstraction than simple arithmetic. But when you try to construct a "real" example, you need to be very careful to fulfill the definition of these sets, A, B and C exactly.

 

First, A is a set (as I said, a set can be anything). A is supposed to be the abstract representation of "what is to be explained". You have labeled the set "Tables". Though you haven't taken the trouble to say it, the common interpretation of labeling the set that way would be to presume that each of the elements (the "elementary" components) of the set would each be a table of some sort.

 

Second, B (also a set) is defined to be an unordered finite collection of elements of A. You have titled B with the phrase Kitchen tables, Dining room tables, living room tables, patio tables.. What you mean by this is simply unclear. Do you mean that the elements of B are Kitchen tables, Dining room tables, living room tables, patio tables or that these are possible labels for particular sets "B". The problem is that either interpretation is inconsistent with the implied definition of A.

 

A better representation of a particular B in this case would be for example, a small blue kitchen table, a large varnished Dining room table, a second small blue kitchen table, and a patio table. (A set of specific tables, a finite collection of elements of A: tables.) There are many ways in which one could construct possible B's and each of those sets B become elements of the set C and you would certainly not be reasonable if you were to label C "Indoor Tables". A much better title would be "a specific collection of shipments of tables" (each shipment being a particular B).

 

At this point, it would be better to constrain the label of A a bit in order to make better sense of what your expectations might be. Instead of "Tables" (which is a pretty general label) let us instead call A "Tables from the Basset Furniture Co.". At that point the question of your possible expectations (and what you are trying to explain) might make a little more sense. What you want to explain are tables which can be obtained from the Basset Furniture Co. And what information is your explanation to be based on? A finite collection of shipments of tables (each which we could label with a shipment number for reference). And what are your expectations? Given a number, and a list of tables, what is the probability you will find a shipment with that shipment number (where the invoice matches that list) either among the shipments you have already received or expect to receive. If you can provide a method of obtaining that probability then you have provided an explanation of A.

 

Even at this point it is not a very good example of "an explanation" as, in dealing with shipments of tables, having nothing to go on except invoices of known shipments is not a very realistic situation. Remember C, by definition, constitutes the entirety of the information upon which your expectations are to be based. It pretty well follows that any realistic situation you want to seriously consider requires a much larger information set than can reasonably be written down. You need to work the truth of these propositions out in the abstract, not in the particular as a reasonable example constitutes a problem far more complex than anything we could write down in an e-message.

 

Does that provide a clearer picture of what I am trying to communicate?

 

And "TIDUSGIYA", I have no idea of what you are talking about! To me it most resembles a shot gun blast of assorted phrases with no theme.

Korzybski says we have NO access to the Territory. None, zip. We ONLY have access to the Map. That is where we live, think, have our minds, and discuss reality.

I agree with Korzybski one hundred percent with regard to that issue. Many many years ago I realized that human intelligence is totally isolated from the outside world. The only contact which exists is via interactions, the real meaning of which cannot be known a-priori. Our mental image of the universe is constructed from data received through mechanisms (our senses) which are also part of that image. I think any scientist in the world would hold it as obvious that one could not possibly model the universe until after some information about that universe were obtained. The problem with this position is that we cannot possibly model our senses (the fundamental source of that information) until after we have modeled the universe. This is a subtle problem far deeper than the old chicken and egg conundrum.

 

In fact I will contend that the problem of explaining the universe is exactly equivalent to the problem of constructing a rational model of a totally unknown universe given nothing but a totally undefined stream of data which has been transcribed by a totally undefined process.

The very fact that we possess a mental image of the universe implies that it is possible to construct a coherent rational model of the universe via nothing more than patterns observed in a totally undefined collection of data. (Remember, the data must be undefined if our senses are undefined.) Since we have such an image, we must conclude that it is possible to construct one. In order to understand our view of the universe and discover the true nature of our presumptions, we must first comprehend the solution of this problem. The only way we can hope to accomplish that result is to solve the problem directly. I have solved that problem and have been attempting to explain the solution to you.

___I have some familiarity with mathematics, which is why I asked about a Venn diagram. As far as I know, they have the facility to represent the unions, conjunctions etc. of sets in an algorithmically reliable fashion; moreover as Dr Dick introduced specific sets, I rationally concluded I may construct a Venn diagram to model them.

I apologize for misunderstanding your comment which I now think I did. It had not occurred to me that someone would make the mistake made by Steve. If you examine my answer to him you should understand that Venn diagrams are not applicable here at all. The "elements" of the three sets are not taken from the same collection of things. The elements of C consist of entire sets B and the elements of B need not be a subset of A. It is entirely possible that an element which exists only once in A may occur many times in B.

 

The abstractions I am presenting in my definition of "an explanation" are quite simple; but the complexity of what can be represented by those abstractions is almost beyond belief. As I told you when I started, we are off into that swamp of confusion out of touch with reality. We are working with nothing beyond what may be deduced from my definitions.

 

Have fun -- Dick

 

What I am saying is really quite simple; it is the consequences which become complex and far reaching.

[ldsoftwaresteve]

DoctorDick:

Steve, I hope I haven't upset you by moving the comments you made by private message back to the thread. I think some of those comments are very important and if you misunderstood what I was saying then others probably misconstrued the same issues.

Lol. Hell no. "I am what I am and that's all that I am". :)

Glad to be of service.

[ldsoftwaresteve]

DoctorDick:

You need to work the truth of these propositions out in the abstract, not in the particular as a reasonable example constitutes a problem far more complex than anything we could write down in an e-message.

But I'm afraid without an example I have nothing to stand on. It becomes somewhat of a leap of faith and I don't do very well in that department. I'll go back over what you wrote, inserting your comments appropriately and see what I can make of it second time through.

[InfiniteNow]

Wow, great post guys.

 

Seriously though, I shaved right before I started reading it and after reading it's time for me to shave again!

 

:)

 

 

 

~~~~~~~~~~

InfiniteNow

[ldsoftwaresteve]

DoctorDick:

In fact I will contend that the problem of explaining the universe is exactly equivalent to the problem of constructing a rational model of a totally unknown universe given nothing but a totally undefined stream of data which has been transcribed by a totally undefined process.

Jesus. Why that statement strikes me I have no idea. Explaining is the same as constructing a rational model....a totally unknown universe.....implies that we have no understanding of it either. Understanding being that ability which provides knowing more from knowing some. Without an understanding of it how can we know it? oh, by allowing that undefined process (our senses I suppose) to transcribe that undefined stream of data (bombardment by 'now' of our senses). So, transcribing is putting it into a form of known. This is, by the way, built in.

You let explanation provide the rest and incidentally, I suspect that when you say 'gaps' (in a previous comment) you mean those things from which 'questions' arise. Which gets into the nature of a question.

[Doctordick]

DoctorDick: But I'm afraid without an example I have nothing to stand on.

Why do you need something to stand on? I don't quite understand where your difficulty lies. Let me reassert what I have presented. :hihi:

 

First, a lot of my underlying preparation (the need for inductive support: i.e., what we can presume available to "stand on") has to do with the defense of using mathematics and logic. That is only there because of the abhorrence of mathematics by the philosophy community. (Which, in my opinion, is equivalent to an abhorrence of logic.) :shrug:

 

Second, I argue that a good definition of "an explanation" is the primary inductive support required outside mathematics and logic.

 

Third, I set forth my definition of "an explanation": a method of obtaining expectations from given known information(this definition is obtained by induction from my experiences). A method (or procedure, function or algorithm) is a defined concept in mathematics. And mathematics is a logical structure I presume you understand (i.e., a mode or mechanism within which you and I can communicate exact concepts).

 

Forth, a method requires a starting place and a finishing place: the starting place is given the label "what we know" and the finishing place is labeled "our expectations". From an abstract perspective all I have said is: "y is a function of x" (y would be "our expectations" and x would be "what we know"). At this point "our expectations" and "what we know" are meaningless concepts; as meaningless as are x and y.

 

Fifth, is the issue of change. By induction (the mechanism through which I arrived at my definition of "an explanation") I am quite sure that "what we know" should be something which is both incomplete (there are important things which we don't know) and changing (we learn new things). I wanted x above (what we know) to have these qualities. So I introduced three sets: A, B and C. C is the symbol to stand in for x (what we know) and B stands in for a change in C. A stands in for the source of B.

 

Sixth, the issue of y. By induction (again, the mechanism through which I arrived at my definition of "an explanation") I am quite sure that any collection of "our expectations" can be answered by true/false answers to questions about "what we know". Again, by induction, I am quite sure that "doubt" is an important component in "our expectations" which may be represented by a real number bounded by zero and one (where "one" means it's true and zero means it's false). So I set y = P(B, t) as a viable representation of "our expectations"

 

At this point, "an explanation" as defined is an entirely abstract concept. :evil: There is nothing real about anything there: every component is a completely abstract concept. And yet it still fulfills the common understanding to the concept "an explanation". Thus it is that I claim to have totally abstracted the essence of the concept "an explanation". If I am in error, I am in error. :shrug: That is, the exact concept I have put forth here may not be what is commonly called "an explanation" at all. That question, at this moment is actually irrelevant. ;) What is important is that I have defined an interesting exact concept. (Interesting to me anyway! :lol:)

 

Being a totally abstract concept, we can apply exact logic without worrying in the least about the validity of the concept (its applicability to reality). Clearly, there are two questions here. Is it really interesting: i.e., is it worth your time to follow the logic? And, once we work out the logical consequences of such a definition, can we find any real applications: i.e., of what use is the construct?

It becomes somewhat of a leap of faith and I don't do very well in that department.

First leap of faith is, do you believe me that it is worth your time to follow the logic? I think you have already taken that leap. It is the second leap of faith which I believe daunts you. That is, is the abstract concept which I have defined really the essence of what is commonly called "an explanation"? That is, are these deductions applicable to reality.:hihi:

 

That is why I think you worry about interpretations of those abstract sets A, B and C. I think what you really are trying to do is to map those sets into a something real in order to prepare yourself to map the conclusions into reality. First, I would caution you that such an exercise will be of little real value after the deductions are accomplished as, by the time that process is completed, your view of the world will be quite different from what it currently is; however, in the interest of showing you how to apply those sets I will give you an example.

 

Let the set B be the collection of all the nerve cells connected to your brain which are currently being activated. Then C would be a log of all states of activation of all the nerve cells connected to your brain that have occurred since you have existed. And A would be the events in the universe which brought about and will bring about activation of those nerve cells. Your expectations would be the activations of those brain cells you would expect to occur. B is the state of your mental interface with reality "now", C is the collection of all the interactions you have had with reality and A is reality itself (or at least what part of it impacts you). And finally, what is "the explanation"? The explanation is the method by which you come up with your expectations: i.e., the world view of the universe you carry in your brain.

 

Now, that example has one very important flaw. It presumes the existence of those nerve cells! At the moment, considering that to be a flaw seems quite outlandish; however, once you understand the consequences of an exact definition of "an explanation" you won't find it as outlandish as it now seems. No more outlandish than Newton's proposal that "nothing" was holding up the moon. ;)

I'll go back over what you wrote, inserting your comments appropriately and see what I can make of it second time through.

Good luck. One of the problems may be that I just write too much and simply deflect attention from the critical issues.

Wow, great post guys.

Thanks for the interest. I read your posts and you seem to be a thinking person; hope to hear more from you.

DoctorDick: Jesus...

Sorry about that; I was afraid that remark would disturb most people. Just another comment deflecting attention from the critical issues. Please don't worry about it; it will make a lot more sense down the road (if you still want to go there).

In fact I will contend that the problem of explaining the universe is exactly equivalent to the problem of constructing a rational model of a totally unknown universe given nothing but a totally undefined stream of data which has been transcribed by a totally undefined process.

Please don't worry about it; but, just as an aside, the problem that we cannot possibly model our senses (the fundamental source of that information) until after we have modeled the universe will defeat any attack which presumes our senses are defined. It turns out that it is the freedom to define the data transcription process (our senses) which is the clue to solving the problem. And that result has dammed deep philosophical implications. But please don't worry about it now.

I suspect that when you say 'gaps' (in a previous comment) you mean those things from which 'questions' arise.

No, I actually had nothing in mind. I was merely looking at 'gaps' as an adjective modifying the character or appearance of some inductive construct. Sorry I keep creating confusing metaphors. :hihi:

 

Looking to hear from you -- Dick

[Doctordick]

I only posted this because the system apparently failed to note my previous post at 4:30 this afternoon. So the bug is not a time delay problem but a real bug in the procedure. It appears to be a function of the length of the post. :hihi:

 

Anyone else have any ideas? -- Dick