Re: One and Zero

Hi Arik,

> > 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?

All constants, including physical constants, but also mathematical
constants.  I realized that constants cannot be defined.  That's one
of the reasons why I wrote 1=0.

> 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.

The average speed of light may be constant in a particular uniform
medium.  But the speed of a specific stream of light, such as a
photon, can never be constant.

It can only be constant if we define space and time according to the
speed of light, which I suspect we do.  For example, we can define one
second as "the time is takes light to pass X kilometers".  But in
reality, I think the speed of light is infinite.  Light can be at many
places at the same time.  Space and time are illusions, their
existence is subjective because the way we perceive them, but they
don't have any objective existence.

> > > 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?

Probably yes.  I don't know.  I don't completely understand how I
think.  But the topics I covered in that post are also related to
other posts of mine - I didn't just select topics "out of the blue".

> > > 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.

So, respelling googol is an evidence that I have schizophrenia?  I
will not deny it, since I admit both (respelling googol and having
schizophrenia).  Actually, I don't even know how they pronounce
googol.  I checked [http://www.answers.com/googol], and it appears to
me that there are more than one ways to pronounce googol, and at least
one of them sounds like Google.  If it does sound like Google, I don't
see any reason to put another o between the g and the l.

By the way, in the first article I wrote about google, I did explain
what it is (10^100).

Anyway, the word schizophrenia is used to specify some stigma
regarding specific people.  There is no objective way to define who
has schizophrenia and who's not, like there are some ways with real
diseases (such as cancer or AIDS).  Schizophrenia is not a disease,
it's a stigma.  When you have it, you don't feel pain and you don't
suffer.  Therefore, the term "he's suffering from schizophrenia"
actually means "he's suffering from us diagnosing him with
schizophrenia".  Actually, people diagnosed with schizophrenia do
suffer emotional pain sometimes, but I believe all of us do.

My view about schizophrenia is very similar to the view expressed in
this article:

Schizophrenia: A Nonexistent Disease
http://www.antipsychiatry.org/schizoph.htm

[quote: "The truth is that the label schizophrenia, like the labels
pornography or mental illness, indicates disapproval of that to which
the label is applied and nothing more.  Like "mental illness" or
pornography, "schizophrenia" does not exist in the sense that cancer
and heart disease exist but exists only in the sense that good and bad
exist.  As with all other so-called mental illnesses, a diagnosis of
"schizophrenia" is a reflection of the speaker's or "diagnostician's"
values or ideas about how a person "should" be, often coupled with the
false (or at least unproven) assumption that the disapproved thinking,
emotions, or behavior results from a biological abnormality.
Considering the many ways it has been used, it's clear "schizophrenia"
has no particular meaning other than "I dislike it."  Because of this,
I lose some of my respect for mental health professionals when I hear
them use the word schizophrenia in a way that indicates they think it
is a real disease.]

> 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.

If the copyright is on a specific file - which is a sequence of bits -
then it is a number.  Even if this file represents a picture (for
example), in order to see the picture you need a software who is able
to display pictures from files.  The fact is that the file itself is
not a picture - the picture is just our interpretation of it.  The
file itself is just a sequence of ones and zeros in a specific order.
But if the picture is copyrighted, the file is copyrighted too, and so
is the number it represents.

Uri.