Re: One and Zero

On 5/1/07, Uri Even-Chen <[email protected]> wrote:

> > > The whole idea of articles such as this one is that I'm challenging
> > > deterministic logic, claiming that it is inconsistent.
> >
> > I'm sorry but I didn't understand how you prove your claim.
>
> It's complicated.  In short, my claim is that if Godel's
> incompleteness theorem is true, then the theory is not consistent (not
> only incomplete).  And Godel's incompleteness theorem is true for any
> deterministic logical theory who is not trivial.
> [http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/CDMTCS/chaitin/georgia.html]
>
> But it is worth proving in more details.  I'll think about it.  If you
> want, you can read my view about it in other articles, such as the
> following two:
>
> http://www.speedy.net/uri/blog/?p=20
> http://www.speedy.net/uri/blog/?p=22

I'll just wait until you formulate a proof.

> I also came to the conclusion that the speed of light is not constant,
> and more generally speaking that constants don't exist.  I wrote about
> it a few articles:
>
> http://www.speedy.net/uri/blog/?cat=3

Do you mean all constants or physical constants?

The speed of light is constant in a particular uniform medium. What
you're claiming in your post is that there can't be a uniform medium,
it's a different claim.

> > Yes, I meant drugs, but drugs are not the only way to achieve these
> > states. You didn't answer my question about the article having the
> > stream-of-consciousness quality - is that how you created it?
>
> I read your question again, but I don't understand what you mean by
> "stream of consciousness".  Can you explain?

There are states of consciousness where you think random thoughts and
each thought follows the rest by pure association, for example you may
think of a stone and then a wall and then of wailing and then of
ultra-orthodox and then of black coats and then of uniform and then of
an army and then of wars and then of Iraq and then of Bush and then of
Anarchists and then of San Francisco. This particular set of objects
(and I didn't include all of the information about the thoughts
regarding these objects) was conjured by association from the original
object, because of the particular associations in my mind and my
particular makeup. If you managed to link these objects with one
another it means you have followed my associations. Looking back at
them I think some of them are rather universal and some are probably
not easily guessed by anyone.

My question is - considering the topics you covered in that post -
were they selected based on associations in your mind?

> > What were you in for? Schizophrenia?

> Technically, yes.  They call it schizophrenia.  But I don't like their
> definitions so much.  Let's say I'm different than them, I think
> differently, and I behave differently.  I also did things which seem
> illogical to most people, and actually I admit it was a mistake.  So
> they decided I'm "sick" and I need "treatment".  I don't consider it
> treatment, I consider it punishment for being nonconformist and doing
> "strange" things.  I also don't consider myself as sick (not
> physically and not mentally).

> I know.  But I allow myself to make exceptions once in a while.  I
> define my own terms sometimes.  If people know me, they will
> understand what I mean when I say google.  I don't have to do
> everything like everybody else.

So, here is my opinion: I don't believe that you are different in the
way you think. I believe most people think that if people knew what
goes on in their minds they would think they are mentally ill, but the
people around them, obviously, think the same thing.

The behavior part is more difficult to come to term with. Behaving
differently will, as you have experienced, get you expelled from
society. Talking about what's in your mind without filtering it to fit
what people think other people must be thinking is included in such
behavior.

My personal, subjective and unsubstantiated opinion is that
Schizophrenia is the inability to control these behavioral expressions
to conform to at least some basic shared concept of what's accepted
(and this concept is shared in a particular society and differs
between societies).

Actually it's the second paragraph - the one in which you decide to
rename googol to google regardless of the mathematical context of the
discussion, is what prompted me to scroll up to my question "What were
you in for?" and add "Schizophrenia?" as the guess. In this paragraph
you demonstrate that regardless of the fact that I don't know you -
not enough to know about the fact that you use a different word to
describe the googol or google - you elected to use that word and even
justify your use.

> I know.  If you're the first one to discover something and publish it,
> you can be considered sometimes as the one who "invented" it or
> "created" it.  Because the chances of two people to publish exactly
> the same book, or melody, is almost zero.  That's why our society
> allows copyrights.  But to have copyright on a file means having
> copyright on a number.  For example, there are prime numbers known as
> "illegal primes".

Again - the copyright is not "on a number" - it's on the work that has
been performed selecting this number out of the infinity of numbers,
because unlike most of the numbers in the pile, this one has a meaning
that is recognizable as having value, at least to the person doing the
job. I reserve the right to think it's crap, though, but that's
subjective opinion or critique. Also, I think you'll have to represent
the number you selected in a different manner (i.e. other than the
number) because the numbers in their numerical representation are in
the public domain.

> Actually, my articles are written in a logical order.  The first one
> is called "The axiom of choice" [http://www.speedy.net/uri/blog/?p=1].
>  If you read them in the order I wrote them, maybe they will make more
> sense to you.  But not all of them are on the same topic, you don't
> have to read all of them if you don't want to.  I wrote most of them
> last month (except the first two, which I wrote about two years ago).

It will take me a while.

-- Arik