He’s right but Captain Kirk tumbled to it before him on Star Trek:
What’s there to do about lying liars who lie about their own lying?
Analytical philosopher Richard Johns’s recent paper in an analytical philosophy journal susses out the fact that if any such liars exist, then the lying part of them must be non-physical. That is, he offers an argument against physicalism, the popular philosophy that only physical things exist and that therefore, if humans exist, we are merely physical.
His argument is deeper version of Captain Kirk’s scheme to defeat enemy robots in I, Mudd, a 1967 episode of Star Trek. Kirk posed a paradox that led to circuit meltdown.
Eric Holloway, “A philosopher explains why thinking matter is impossible” at Mind Matters News
The sad truth is that Star Trek makes more sense than the stupid things naturalists/ materialists/ physicalists (or whatever they choose to call them-selves nowadays) spout.
Eric, did you read John’s original article? I didn’t because I don’t have $40.00 to pay for it or $99.00 for a subscription.
I notice that his article seems to depend on the brain operating in a totally digital/logical/mathematical manner and I think it actually has an awful lot of analogue in it, which would invalidate any mathematical proofs.
It would also help if somebody could explain the author’s claim that lies have to be non-physical.
And yet humans are material beings who think!
@3 Mung
Are thoughts material? 🙂
If anyone comes across some thoughts which don’t emerge from a physical brain then please let us know,
If anyone has any evidence that thoughts emerge from a physical brain, please present it. I have never heard of a neuron or group of neurons creating a thought. I have never heard of the electricity flowing down a neuron creating a thought. So does anyone know of any such evidence?
How about evidence that materialistic processes can produce brains? No?
@5 Seversky
Necessary and sufficient are not the same.
A car is necessary to do the driving but it is not sufficient. Without a driver, there is no driving.
ET (attn Sev):
Reppert is withering:
KF
MS, kindly explain how continuously varying signals makes a substantial difference to the basic semantic gap here. KF
@5
Panpsychism is the theory of choice, brain DOESNT generate consciousness, instead all matter is conscious to begin with, the brain simply gives the Facilities to which it expresses itself. So everything is conscious outside of the brain, thoughts can develop in clouds in the middle of a nebulous storm in space. The structure just has to be complex enough for it to cultivate.
So according to this scientific theory that is excepted and growing in acceptance, thoughts can be generated outside of the brain all over the universe because everything has a degree of consciousness
Not that I agree with this
Again, I recommend reading the play, “Disinherit The Wind”, by Matt Chait. It gets to the heart of this debate.
@10 AaronS1978:
AaronS1978, with all due respect, I do not think panpsychism is scientific at all.
@12
I know that’s my point
Panpsychism means: materialism/ physicalism is desperate.
@13 AaronS1978:
Lol 🙂
___
(Double post).
ET –
Do you have a physical brain?
Do you have thoughts?
More problems for materialism:
LoL! @ Bob O’H- Just because I have thoughts and a physical brain doesn’t mean the brain produced them. Clearly you don’t have a clue.
Are you suggesting that if we remove your brain, you’ll continue to think?
No, I’m saying that you don’t know what you are talking about. And you clearly don’t understand logic and reasoning.
If anyone has any evidence that thoughts emerge from a physical brain, please present it.
Still waiting
Bob O’H
Please answer this question (though at first glance it may seem ‘strange’):
How do you “know” you have a brain? Have you seen it?
ET – I think you provided your own answer to your question.
KF: “kindly explain how continuously varying signals makes a substantial difference to the basic semantic gap here.”
Eric seems to be talking about the mind as if it’s something digital: “… Johns shows that no completely intelligible entity can think about itself. Otherwise it will end up producing a contradiction and contradictions cannot exist.” and “So what is a “completely intelligible” entity? It is defined as an entity that can be perfectly expressed by a mathematical formula.”
He reassures us that minds won’t poof into ‘contradictory non-existence’ because they don’t work according to a mathematical formula, which can apparently be somehow jammed by a logical contradiction.
I agree with him because I don’t believe such a mathematical formula describing the brain exists and one of the reasons I believe this is because our brain is not a logical device. Those neurons are not logic gates, they’re analog and the same inputs won’t always give the same outputs.
I also am amazed that anyone would show a cheezy Startrek episode featuring robots that smoke when they encounter the liar’s paradox as having some relation to the real world, let alone to the human brain. Eric seems to believe that logical devices catch fire when they encounter a logical contradiction, which makes me wonder what kind of computers the Air Force is using these days.
I’d also like to see Johns’ original paper. His abstract says, “This fact allows a physical property of brain states to be defined using Cantor’s diagonal construction, and then a contradiction results if a physical system is assumed to form thoughts involving that property.” I remember reading about Cantor’s diagonal construction 20 or 30 years ago and I think Godel used something similar to prove his incompleteness theorem. I wonder how Johns can possibly apply it to the human brain. However, I’m not $39.95 curious for something that shows all the signs of being another disappointment.
@24 MatSpirit
Shows “all the signs” but you have not read it.
“I do not know” works fine.
Well, it’s true that I don’t know anything about Richard Johns, but he seems to be a legit scientist of some sort. His article is published by Springer and they’re pretty respectable.
But the article’s title is, “Why Physicalism Seems to Be (and Is) Incompatible with Intentionality,” which I think is incorrect. On the other hand, he also speaks of defining physical properties of brain states using Cantor’s diagonal method and I’d like to see how he manages that. But then again, Eric holds the article up as proving something important about the human mind and his record in this field makes me think he is a little confused.
I doubt the article will come to much, hence I’m holding on to my $39.95.
@26 MatSpirit
And then:
I suspect you do not really want to know.
That is what I was pointing out.
Bob O’H:
Right, there isn’t any evidence that materialistic processes produced the brain and there isn’t any evidence that the brain creates thoughts.
ET – except that when I asked you “Are you suggesting that if we remove your brain, you’ll continue to think?”, you answered “No”.
@29 Bob O’H
Well, the problem is, that if ET is his brain, you can NOT logically ask that question.
According to your materialist view: ET “is” a brain.
You can not remove a brain from itself.
Bob O’H:
Where and when did I post that answer? Methinks you don’t know how to read for comprehension.
Try again, this time without quote-mining
Right, there isn’t any evidence that materialistic processes produced the brain and there isn’t any evidence that the brain creates thoughts.
Please notice that the materialists who regularly show up here at UD are doing nothing more than dogmatically doubling down on a logically fallacious argument:
No one has ever proved that materialism is false.
[Therefore] Materialism is true.
However, the above is nothing more than a fallacious appeal to ignorance. It’s a textbook example of an Ad ignorantium argument (an appeal to ignorance).
Of course fallacious arguments are not really arguments at all.
MS, I hear you, insofar as propositions etc are in effect coded statements. I add that the border between the two is fuzzy, as A/D and D/A exist and do so in a Fourier haunted world. KF
KF: Who is Reppert in 8? Do you have a URL for that quote?
MS, Victor Reppert, it comes from his book, C S Lewis’ Dangerous Idea. KF
@34 MatSpirit, 35 Kairosfocus
C. S. Lewis’s Dangerous Idea: In Defense of the Argument from Reason
https://www.amazon.com/C-S-Lewiss-Dangerous-Idea/dp/0830827323
Truth claims are propositional. That is, truth claims are stated in the form of a proposition. But what is a proposition? Where do propositions exist? What do they look like? Where are they located? How much space do they take up? How much do they weigh? How long have they existed? How and where did they originate? Obviously, these questions are absurd because propositions are not physical. But if the physical or material is all that exists as the materialist claims, which is by the way a propositional truth claim, how can such a proposition be true? How can something that doesn’t really exist, as the materialist claims, be true? Obviously that is self-refuting.
It would be one thing if our interlocutors maintained their so-called truth claims as just private subjective opinions– something which is simply true for them. But no, they try to use a propositional truth claim as the basis of a materialistic world view which they then try to argue everyone is obligated to accept as “the default position.”
Here is a discussion I had recently on another thread with Bob O’H,
https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/ub-schools-bob-oh/#comment-692515
This was based on an earlier discussion that was based on an earlier discussion…
See here:
https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/ub-schools-bob-oh/#comment-692476
For some reason Bob decided to bail out on the discussion. Why is that? Is it because I pointed out to him that his “argument” was based on a logical fallacy? Of course, I suppose that is kind of embarrassing.
@37 John_a_designer:
According to our darwinian friends:
Potential actions + neurotransmitters.
Inside the brain/ neurons.
How much space do they take up?
They have no idea. It is inside the brain and the if you do not agree, you do not ‘understand science’.
They have no idea. *Promissory materialism* will solve it all.
Evolution answers this. Since the dawn of man.
Random mutations + natural selection (or maybe ‘spandrels’, or maybe ‘drift’).
John_a_designer, 37: But if the physical or material is all that exists as the materialist claims, which is by the way a propositional truth claim, how can such a proposition be true? How can something that doesn’t really exist, as the materialist claims, be true? Obviously that is self-refuting.
I tend to reflect back on mathematics which, generally, has a satisfying characteristic of being true or false regardless of beliefs. Generally. I won’t get into the grey areas of which there are many.
Anyway, in mathematics there are undisputed truths which are independent of material existence. I don’t know exactly how this moves the argument forward or backward or sideways but I do like a good counter-example.
JVL
“I tend to reflect back on mathematics which, generally, has a satisfying characteristic of being true or false regardless of beliefs”
According to Gödel in what sense can we say mathematical propositions are true when they are not provable? If they are not provable then the truth or falsity rests on certain propositions and beliefs.
Vivid
Vividbleau, 46: According to Gödel in what sense can we say mathematical propositions are true when they are not provable? If they are not provable then the truth or falsity rests on certain propositions and beliefs.
That’s not quite what Gödel actually showed. From Wikipedia:
and
Most of the mathematics that most of us are familiar with can be proved. Think of the Pythagorean Theorem. That is incontrovertibly true to the point that trying to disprove it is predictably a waste of time. Now the Axiom of Choice . . . that’s a much more slippery concept.
KF, 33: as A/D and D/A exist and do so in a Fourier haunted world.
I just notice this statement. What do you mean by “Fourier haunted world”? Fourier analysis?
JVL, Fourier series and integral analysis with related things like Laplace and Z transforms surfaces the frequency-phase domain as a dual to our time domain experience of dynamical processes. Along the way, integrals and differentials get absorbed, leading to a complex frequency perspective. In that context we enrich the digital-analogue divide. As an entry point, ponder how hearing effects a translation to the frequency domain using the cochlea. Similarly ponder our colour vision system. KF
KF, 43:
For me Fourier analysis (transforms and series) are just mathematical procedures that make doing some other things easier. They’re just mathematical analytic tools, not haunting at all!
I guess you’re thinking of how they point out how complicated things are built up of simpler pieces? I’m not sure why there is a particular significance in hearing and vision. If you’d like to elucidate that would be great but if you’re not bothered that’s okay too!
In response to Vivid and JVL at 40 and 41
In fact, the non-Euclidean geometries of special relativity and general relativity, geometries in which parallel lines do not stay parallel and 90-degree turns do not behave as true 90-degree turns, are found to be the actual geometries that describe the space-time of this universe.
https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/faith-even-mathematics-depends-on-some-unprovable-assumptions/#comment-690689
In fact, in so far as measurement accuracy will allow, the non-Euclidean geometries of special relativity and general relativity are found to be the ‘platonically perfect’ mathematical descriptions of the non-Euclidean geometries of this universe
“MATERIALISM IS FALSE” – KURT GÖDEL
https://drjohnhspencer.com/materialism-is-false-kurt-godel/
From the Wikipedia article on Kurt Gödel:
He sounds like a pretty interesting person!
BA77, 45: This means that the ‘whole’ truth about numbers will forever remain outside the grasp of logical reasoning.
No, it means that you cannot discover everything that is true about a system with a brick-by-brick construction of theorems. You may have to rationalise from outside a given set of axioms. Not outside the grasp of logical reasoning just outside a particular built-up structure.
Godel proved what poets have always known, that transcendental truths are beyond the reach of reason:
Again, Gödel was making statements about mathematics, that’s it. And, by the way, there are ‘transcendental’ numbers like ? and e. Okay, that’s just by definition but there’s a reason that term was picked.
If you think there are things that reason cannot touch then how could reason prove that that is the case?
JVL, i agree completely with you that Gödel’s critique applies to mathematics and not to logic itself. After all, Gödel himself used logic to develop his proof against the belief that mathematics was complete. You are right, the author of that article choose his words very poorly. The main reason I cited that particular article was because of this comment in particular from the article
Moreover, I also laid out the fact that we know that the parallel postulate does not hold for the non-Euclidean geometries of special relativity and general relativity, geometries in which parallel lines do not stay parallel and 90-degree turns do not behave as true 90-degree turns.
But anyways, regardless of the fact that mathematics itself is now shown to be incomplete, which you yourself agree that you “have to rationalise from outside a given set of axioms”, mathematicians and physicists today still act as if ‘the truth’, i.e. the ‘theory of everything’, can be reached by mathematics and observation alone.
The search for the ultimate truth about reality in science today takes the form of trying to find the hypothetical final mathematical ‘theory of everything’. Indeed much money and research has been dedicated to this particular endeavor.
In its present form this search entails trying to mathematically unify general relativity and quantum field theory (QED), (which is the unification quantum mechanics and special relativity), into a single mathematical ‘theory of everything’. It is hoped that this hypothetical final ‘theory of everything’ will be ‘capable of describing all phenomena in the universe.’
As the following article states, “The first attempt at unifying relativity and quantum mechanics took place when special relativity was merged with electromagnetism. This created the theory of quantum electrodynamics, or QED. It is an example of what has come to be known as relativistic quantum field theory, or just quantum field theory. QED is considered by most physicists to be the most precise theory of natural phenomena ever developed.”
Interestingly, “Although quantum field theory is fully compatible with the special theory of relativity, a relativistic treatment of quantum measurement has yet to be formulated.”, i.e. conscious observation was dropped by the wayside in QFT!
In what should be needless to say, since ‘conscious observation’ itself was dropped by the wayside in QFT , then that necessarily precludes QFT from being the correct step towards the final ‘theory of everything’ that supposedly “is capable of describing all phenomena in the universe”.
But anyways, Richard Feynman (and others) were only able to unify special relativity and quantum mechanics into Quantum Electrodynamics by quote unquote “brushing infinity under the rug” with a technique called Renormalization.
And whereas special relativity, by ‘brushing infinity under the rug’, has been semi-successfully unified, (i.e. save of course for quantum measurement), with quantum theory to produce Quantum Electrodynamics and/or Quantum Field Theory, no such mathematical ‘sleight of hand’ exists for unifying general relativity with quantum mechanics.
General relativity, as the following articles show, simply refuses to be mathematically unified with quantum mechanics in any acceptable way. In technical terms, Gravity has yet to be successfully included into a theory of everything since the infinities that crop up in that attempt simply are not renormalizable as they were in Quantum-Electrodynamics.
This mathematically ‘infinite’ divide to there ever being a purely mathematical ‘theory of everything’ should have, somewhat, been foreseen. Godel’s incompleteness theorem implies exactly that. There simply never will be a purely mathematical ‘theory of everything’. As Hawking himself conceded, “Kurt Gödel halted the achievement of a unifying all-encompassing theory of everything” and,, “Anything you can draw a circle around cannot explain itself without referring to something outside the circle—something you have to assume but cannot prove”.”
In fact, Gödel’s incompleteness theorem has now been extended to physics and is not just some abstract mathematical limit that prevents there from ever being a purely mathematical ‘theory of everything’ but is now shown to be, in actuality, a defining feature of reality:
In the following article entitled ‘Quantum physics problem proved unsolvable: Gödel and Turing enter quantum physics’, which studied the derivation of macroscopic properties from a complete microscopic description, the researchers remark that even a perfect and complete description of the microscopic properties of a material is not enough to predict its macroscopic behaviour.,,, The researchers further commented that their findings challenge the reductionists’ point of view, as the insurmountable difficulty lies precisely in the derivation of macroscopic properties from a microscopic description.”
Simply put, despite how much mathematicians and physicists may believe that there simply must be a purely mathematical ‘theory of everything’ that exist out there somewhere, there, in fact, never will be a purely mathematical theory of everything that links the microscopic world of quantum mechanics to the macroscopic world of General Relativity.
All hope for a coherent ‘theory of everything’ is not lost though. A major problem that crops up in trying to unify quantum mechanics and general relativity is that when theorists try to combine the two theories, then the resulting theory predicts that spacetime, atoms, and the universe itself should all be literally torn apart. Here are a few references that get this point across.
And yet, despite both theories contradicting each other to the point of ‘blowing up the universe’, never-the-less quantum mechanics and general relativity are both tested to extreme levels of precision, so we can have extreme confidence that both theories are true.
And herein is where our reasoning outside ‘the circle of mathematics’ becomes necessary.
Since quantum mechanics and general relativity are both tested to extreme levels of precision, and we can thus have a very high level of confidence that both theories are in fact true, and since Godel’s incompleteness theorem requires that ‘something’ must be assumed to be ‘outside the circle’ of mathematics, then it is safe to assume that something very powerful must be holding the universe together. ,,, After all we do not see the universe blowing up do we?
Atheists have nothing to appeal to, whereas Christianity predicts that Christ is before all things, and in him all things hold together, and also that He upholds the universe by the word of his power.
Further note to Christ, particularly the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, being the correct ‘theory of everything’:
BA77, 49: You are right, the author of that article choose his words very poorly.
Yeah, you have to be really careful when talking about this kind of stuff.
Why ’77’ by the way? Just curious. It’s a year I remember well.
But anyways, regardless of the fact that mathematics itself is now shown to be incomplete, which you yourself agree that you “have to rationalise from outside a given set of axioms”, mathematicians and physicists today still act as if ‘the truth’, i.e. the ‘theory of everything’, can be reached by mathematics and observation alone.
Not a view I share. But I’ll stay out of the philosophical aspects; I know so little I can’t even be wrong, just moronic.
“Why ’77’”
Well because both bornagain, and bornagain7 were taken when I first set up my e-mail account way back in the mid 1990s. I had to settle for bornagain77. 🙂
Gödel was able to prove that there are self-referential propositions in mathematics that are undecidable. Of course, there is a long ongoing debate as how widely his incompleteness theory can be applied outside of mathematics. I am not going to go off on that tangent here (I am neither a mathematician nor a logician) though I do think we need to be cautious about being over reaching with the implications. For example, I don’t think that his theorem leads to total agnosticism or nihilism nor does it prove or refute metaphysical positions like materialism or theism etc.
However, I do think it does have some things to say about basic logic. Indeed, Gödel in his paper does allude to these problems that have been known since ancient times. For example, there are some logical paradoxes that can be stated in plain English (or if you were living in ancient Greece, in “plain Greek.”)
Gödel, for example, mentions the so-called liar’s paradox. Here is one version of that paradox that I think is the clearest.
Consider the following proposition:
*1: This sentence contains six words.
Notice there are two things we can say about this sentence. First, it is self-referential. It’s referring to itself.
Second, it’s making a truth claim about itself. But furthermore, we can determine whether it really is true or false by just counting the words. In this case it’s false. So its truth or falsity can be established or decided.
Now consider a second sentence.
*2: This sentence is false.
This is also a self-referential sentence. So is it true or false? Can anyone determine whether it’s true or false? If you think you can, go ahead and try to prove that you can arrive at an answer.
My point is that in logic as in mathematics there ARE propositions whose truth and falsity CANNOT be determined. However, it does not follow that there are NO propositions whose truth and falsity CAN be determined. Or that unsolved problems in logic or mathematics are unsolvable. In other words, the existence of logical paradoxes does not undermine the foundations of logic itself any more than Gödel’s theorem undermines the foundations of mathematics.
For example, “the Goldbach Conjecture is a yet unproven conjecture stating that every even integer greater than two is the sum of two prime numbers… [It] is one of the oldest unsolved problems in number theory.” However, it does not follow that because it is unsolved that it is unsolvable. In other words, even though Gödel was able to prove that there are undecidable theorems in mathematics it does not prove that the Goldbach Conjecture is undecidable or unprovable.
John_a_designer as to this claim,
Well, here are a few people who disagree with you, (although I don’t think they would use the words ‘prove’ or ‘refute’,,, let’s just stick with the term ‘strongly indicates’ OK?)
i.e. Without God, Atheists can’t even ‘intuitively know’ that 2+2=4.
Of related interest to that embarrassing little fact, Godel’s incompleteness theorem was born out of the fact that mathematicians could not actually ‘prove’ that 1+1=2. You can pick up some of the details of that fact at 10:00 minute mark of the following video
JVL, nope. The frequency domain is very real, and dual to the time domain. Only, it is not so familiar to those who have not worked with it. Our hearing is a good example. KF
John_a_designer, 53: For example, I don’t think that his theorem leads to total agnosticism or nihilism nor does it prove or refute metaphysical positions like materialism or theism etc.,
Agreed!
My point is that in logic as in mathematics there ARE propositions whose truth and falsity CANNOT be determined. However, it does not follow that there are NO propositions whose truth and falsity CAN be determined. Or that unsolved problems in logic or mathematics are unsolvable. In other words, the existence of logical paradoxes does not undermine the foundations of logic itself any more than Gödel’s theorem undermines the foundations of mathematics.
Lovely! Yes, yes, yes!!
For example, “the Goldbach Conjecture is a yet unproven conjecture stating that every even integer greater than two is the sum of two prime numbers… [It] is one of the oldest unsolved problems in number theory.” However, it does not follow that because it is unsolved that it is unsolvable. In other words, even though Gödel was able to prove that there are undecidable theorems in mathematics it does not prove that the Goldbach Conjecture is undecidable or unprovable.
Again, lovely. I think you’ve summed it all up beautifully.
I think the Goldbach Conjecture is definitely true . . . or false. But it’s not one of those statements which may be better thought of as axioms. Like Zorn’s Lemma. Which, just to dive down that rabbit’s hole a bit further, has been shown to be equivalent to The Axiom of Choice and The Well Ordering Principle. IF you accept The Axiom of Choice you get one kind of mathematics. If you don’t accept it then things change.
There is a lot and a lot and a lot of mathematics that is proven, that is true beyond any sensible argument. In fact, just about everything taught in undergraduate classes. But there are swathes of grey areas. Along with whole classes of problems like NP-Complete ones that defy certain kinds of solutions.
Mathematics is huge, really huge. Seriously, Calculus is just the beginning.
BA77, 54:
I’m not ignoring your arguments in post 54, I’m choosing not to engage with them. I think you’re delving into theology and that is something I am hideously poorly equipped to contribute to. I might be wrong about that but I do not want to pretend I understand something which I have no sound knowledge of. We agreed on the math part and that’s good with me.
KF, 55: nope. The frequency domain is very real, and dual to the time domain. Only, it is not so familiar to those who have not worked with it. Our hearing is a good example.
The frequency domain . . . in a mathematical sense? Domain would mean possible inputs to a function. What does ‘dual to the time domain’ mean? The same as? Or ?
I’m not trying to trip you up, I’m just trying to figure out what you’re saying. And I’m probably being a bit stupid for which I apologise. if you don’t think it’s worth the time that’s okay but I would like to know.
JVL, structure and quantity are aspects of logic of being. There is no good reason to think that a frequency of a vibration is fictional as opposed to the time domain pattern. Extending, our hearing responds to frequency components, cf the cochlea. The superposition of sinusoids works as advertised. A frequency response, linked transient response [Laplace etc enter here] and effects of poles and zeros are all significant. KF
JVL, as to:
But alas, Godel forces us to confront the ontology of mathematics and the question of what provides its ultimate foundation. The atheist simply has no answer to that question, and therefore, like you are doing right now, the atheist chooses to ignore or to not seriously engage the question (of note: I’m not calling you an atheist),
Berlinski went even further and stated, “There is no argument against religion that is not also an argument against mathematics. Mathematicians are capable of grasping a world of objects that lies beyond space and time….”
Indeed mathematics itself is immaterial. That is to say, mathematics itself exists in a transcendent, beyond space and time realm, a realm which simply is not reducible any possible material explanation. This transcendent mathematical realm has been referred to as a Platonic mathematical world.
In the following article, Dr. Michael Egnor does an excellent job of highlighting the sheer poverty that naturalism has in regards to ever providing an coherent explanation for ‘immaterial’ mathematics
Likewise M. Anthony Mills explains, “And yet — here’s the rub — these “abstract (mathematical) objects” are not material. Thus, one cannot take science as the only sure guide to reality and at the same time discount disbelief in all immaterial realities.”
The predicament that Darwinian naturalists find themselves in regards to denying the reality of this transcendent, immaterial, world of mathematics, and yet needing validation from this transcendent, immaterial, world of mathematics in order for their materialistic theory to even be considered scientific in the first place, should be the very definition of a scientifically self-refuting worldview.
Moreover, as should be obvious by now, the fact that man himself has access to, and can use, this transcendent, beyond space and time, immaterial world of mathematics, offers fairly compelling evidence that man in not a purely material being but that man must also possess a transcendent, beyond space and time, immaterial mind and/or soul.
As Charles Darwin’s contemporary, Alfred Russel Wallace himself stated, “Nothing in evolution can account for the soul of man. The difference between man and the other animals is unbridgeable. Mathematics is alone sufficient to prove in man the possession of a faculty unexistent in other creatures. Then you have music and the artistic faculty. No, the soul was a separate creation.”
Verse:
Supplemental note that you may like JVL
KF, 58:There is no good reason to think that a frequency of a vibration is fictional as opposed to the time domain pattern.
I would hope no one would suggest it’s fictional! But that is just a measurement made with regard to basic units.
Extending, our hearing responds to frequency components, cf the cochlea. The superposition of sinusoids works as advertised. A frequency response, linked transient response [Laplace etc enter here] and effects of poles and zeros are all significant.
Yup, Fourier analysis is correct. Not sure what poles you are talking about. And there usually are a lot of zeroes about! 🙂
BA77, 59: But alas, Godel forces us to confront the ontology of mathematics and the question of what provides its ultimate foundation. The atheist simply has no answer to that question, and therefore, like you are doing right now, the atheist chooses to ignore or to not seriously engage the question (of note: I’m not calling you an atheist),
Thanks for the disclaimer! And you may be right about the implications of Gödel’s work. I know if I participate in that conversation I will look like a complete fool and so, rather than confirm I AM a complete fool, I’m going to attempt to maintain my ambiguity and keep quiet!
Poles and zeroes means complex analysis. Poles are when a function becomes infinity, zeroes are when it becomes zero. I haven’t done enough Fourier analysis to know if poles crop up a lot there. I’d imagine it’s preferable if they don’t.
BO’H: I am actually going next door into Laplace and Z transforms. A classic picture is that the sigma axis captures transient behaviour and j omega behaviour frequency behaviour. Plot a Laplace transfer function’s poles and zeros and imagine a heavy rubber sheet draped over the poles and nailed down at the zeros. The cut along the j omega axis gives frequency response, reflecting what one of my students called the shoulders of the poles. Of course as the differential operator amounts to multiply by s and the integral, divide by s, all of this goes to differential equations etc too. A familiar manifestation is the sort of bode plot, frequency response curves [in log form] shown in audio reviews. The pattern is far more general than that. KF
JVL, time, length, mass, angle, temperature, electric current, luminous intensity and extensions thereof including number of cycles per second aka frequency are “just” measurements. They take a standardised amount of some Q and take a ratio P:Q as the value in some scheme of units. 1.98 metres or 610 kHz or 91.1 MHz is a measurement reflecting underlying structures and quantities of reality. These are not fictional. And above, I noted to BO’H on frequency response, transfer functions, poles and zeros. I guess that gets us into another issue, that complex numbers are real, with the j- or i- operator indicating rotation by a right angle anticlockwise, so j^2- is such rotation by two right angles implying that j is square root minus one. Nope, that is no more imaginary than reals are. Again, I point out that we are dealing with the logic of structure and quantity that in part constrains what may be in any possible world through logic of being and in part reflects the similar import of the framework of a particular world such as our own. Mathematics, so understood, is not an arbitrary game we can make up as we will. KF
PS Note how the cochlea uses frequency sensitive hairs in an array to convert vibrations and transients in time to patterns in frequency. Hearing carries out in effect a fast fourier transform mechanically.
As to infinity in mathematics, Gödel’s incompleteness theorems were ultimately a cumulation of the work of Georg Cantor in trying to bring a systematic understanding of infinity into mathematics. In short, Georg Cantor was trying to ‘tame infinity’ so as to make it mathematically useful.
As the beginning of the preceding video made clear, this endeavor by Cantor to ‘tame infinity’ was very much a theological quest for Cantor. In fact, in the following article Cantor is quoted as saying that, “From me Christian philosophy will be offered for the first time the true theory of the infinite.”
I will touch upon the conflict between “potential and actual infinity” later on.
As the preceding video also touched upon, Cantor ultimately failed in his endeavor to ‘tame infinity’. In fact, the preceding video is also not too subtle in its hint that Cantor’s mental illness in his later life was directly associated with his endeavor to try to ‘tame infinity’.
As the following article states, “Cantor spent the last thirty-five years of his life in a vain effort to prove this., (i.e. that all the possible orders of infinity could be counted,), He died in 1918 in a mental hospital.”
Although Cantor ultimately failed in his endeavor to ‘tame infinity’, never-the-less, Cantor pioneered some very useful tools in mathematics, useful tools which are useful today and which were ‘probably’ essential to Gödel in his work on bringing incompleteness to fruition,,
Now back to the conflict between “potential and actual infinity”.
As was touched upon in post 49, General relativity simply refuses to be mathematically unified with quantum mechanics in any acceptable way. In technical terms, Gravity has yet to be successfully included into a theory of everything since the infinities that crop up in that attempt simply are not renormalizable as they were in Quantum-Electrodynamics.
https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/eric-holloway-a-philosopher-explains-why-thinking-matter-is-impossible/#comment-693691
As was referenced in post 49, “Yet there remains an irremediable difficulty, (in unifying gravitation with quantum mechanics). Every order reveals new types of infinities, and no finite number of renormalizations renders all the terms in the series finite.
And at the 7:08 minute mark of the following video, Michio Kaku,, after going through some calculations trying to integrate Quantum Mechanics and Gravity at a black hole, goes on to state “And when you do this integral, you get something which makes no sense whatsoever. An infinity. Total nonsense. In fact, you get an infinite sequence of infinities. Infinitely worse than the divergences of Einstein’s original theory.”
As the preceding video clearly illustrated, the main conflict of reconciling General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics appears to arise from the inability of either theory to successfully deal with the Zero/Infinity conflict that crops up between each theory:
In short, by all appearances, it seems readily apparent that we are dealing with a ‘actual infinity’ instead of merely a ‘potential infinity’ in our endeavor to try to mathematically unify General Relativity with Quantum Mechanics.
Thus in order to achieve unification between General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics, it seems readily apparent that an ‘actual infinity’ would have to found to exist between the two theories.
And this is where Christ’s resurrection from the dead comes into play once again.
Dr. William Dembski in this following comment, although he was not specifically addressing the Zero/Infinity conflict in General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics, offers insight into the fact that Christ’s resurrection from the dead was the realization of an ‘actual infinity’ instead of merely being a realization of a ‘potential infinity’:
I hold it to be fairly obvious that ‘growing large without measure’ is a merely a ‘potential infinity’, whereas I also hold it to be fairly obvious that a fraction in which the denominator goes to zero is an ‘actual infinity’.
In regards to growing large without measure, here are a few references that clearly illustrate the deficiencies of a ‘potential infinite’ when compared to an ‘actual infinite’
In short, “A collection formed by adding one member to another cannot be actually infinite,,,”
Simply put, the reason why ‘growing large without measure’, i.e. a ‘potential infinite’, is a lesser quality infinity than ‘a fraction in which the denominator goes to zero’, i.e. an actual infinite, is because anything that begins to grow large without measure must necessarily have some sort of beginning. Whereas, on the other hand, to form a fraction in which the denominator goes to zero is to force a finite object into a type of infinity that can have no discernible beginning, no discernible end, no discernible anything. i.e. it is to force a finite object into a true infinity!
But does Christ’s resurrection from the dead provide us with the necessary ‘actual infinity’ that is apparently required in order to unify Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity?
Well, according to evidence gleaned from the Shroud of Turin, Christ’s resurrection from the dead DOES provide us with the necessary ‘actual infinity’ that is apparently required in order to satisfactorily unify Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity.
As Isabel Piczek notes in the following video, the Shroud of Turin reveals a strange ‘event horizon’:
And in support of Isabel Piczek’s claim, the following study found that ‘The bottom part of the cloth (containing the dorsal image) would have born all the weight of the man’s supine body, yet the dorsal image is not encoded with a greater amount of intensity than the frontal image.’
In other words, gravity was dealt with in Christ’s Resurrection from the dead.
Moreover, besides gravity being dealt with, the shroud also gives us evidence that Quantum Mechanics was dealt with. In the following paper, it was found that it was not possible to describe the image formation on the Shroud in classical terms but they found it necessary to describe the formation of the image on the Shroud in discrete quantum terms.
Kevin Moran, an optical engineer working on the mysterious ‘3D’ nature of the Shroud image, states the ‘quantum’ explanation this way, “This suggests a quantum event where a finite amount of energy transferred abruptly. The fact that there are images front and back suggests the radiating particles were released along the gravity vector.”
Moreover, the following article found that it would take 34 Trillion Watts of what is termed VUV (directional) radiation to form the image on the shroud.
To provide further plausibility to Christ’s resurrection from the dead providing the correct solution for the much sought after ‘Theory of Everything” it is also important to note that humans ‘naturally’ emit quantum light:
And to add even more plausibility that Christ’s resurrection from the dead provides the correct solution for the much sought after ‘Theory of Everything” it is also important to note that both General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics have now themselves overturned the Copernican principle:
As well, another important fact to take note of is that the ‘free will loophole’ has now been closed by Anton Zeilinger and company.
Moreover allowing free will and/or Agent causality into the laws of physics at their most fundamental level has some fairly profound implications for us personally.
As you can see from my above argument, the main linchpin in the success of my argument for Jesus Christ’s ressurection from the dead providing the correct solution for the much sought after ‘theory of everything’ hinges on the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin.
Of course atheists simply refuse to accept the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin since, if they accepted the fact that the Shroud is authentic then they, of course, will no longer be atheists but will be, well, Christians. 🙂
But as with their refusal to accept the evidence for intelligent design itself, the empirical evidence for the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin itself could care less if atheists refuse to accept it or not. And as far as empirical evidence itself is concerned, the Shroud of Turin is most certainly authentic:
Thus in conclusion, the resolution of the fairly intense conflict between potential infinity and actual infinity is yet another line evidence that supports my claim that Christ’s resurrection from the dead in the correct solution for the much sought after ‘theory of everything’
Verses:
KF: 55: nope. The frequency domain is very real, and dual to the time domain. Only, it is not so familiar to those who have not worked with it. Our hearing is a good example.
I’m going to write as this is core to my livelihood. Integral transforms operate on conjugate domains the descriptor dual is a term unfamiliar to me. Something characteristic of conjugate domains is that their dimensional units are mutually inverse. In Joseph Fourier’s application the conjugate dimensions were {length, 1/length}. The same is true in quantum mechanics when probability waves are described in space. In electrical engineering the classic application of Fourier analysis renders measure in terms of time and frequency whose dimensions are {t, 1/t} whether frequency is in Hz (dimensioned 1/sec) or rads/sec (still 1/sec since radians are dimensionless). Also to further indicate the possible confusion, with Fourier analysis, the conjugate pair of domains each have at least one codomain, i.e. the time domain has a codomain of amplitude, but the frequency domain has two codomains, those of amplitude and phase.
However in recent decades EE’s have delved into applied mathematics for imaging and image compression, with an important tool being the discrete cosine transform (DCT) whose conjugate dimensions are either {length, 1/length}. or {pixel, 1/pixel}
Something that I see frequently on Quora and stackexchange is confusion regarding the Laplace transform and one of the conjugate domains itself (the variable s) is complex, so is two-dimensional. And its codomain is complex/two-dimensional, requiring a 4-d space to visualize. Many beginners cannot fathom how one of the domains can have units inverse to its conjugate and be 2-d and this is one of many difficult hurdles to visualizing the workings of these operations.
Groov, good to hear you. I used dual in a loose sense [mutual, conjugate functional domains accessible through a direct mapping relationship with corresponding results — Wiki’s 101 note is here]. The Laplace variable s or sometimes p is indeed complex, with the imaginary part associated with frequency and the real part with transient behaviour. Connexions with differential equations and dynamics lurk, through transfer functions that characterise system behaviour. My basic point is, there are structural and quantitative aspects of the logic of being involved, so that once those differential equations are in place that characterise dynamics, the frequency domain behaviour necessarily follows by force of those dynamics and relationships of structure and quantity. And yes, 1/time is indeed how frequency is dimensionalised, cycles of oscillation [phenomenon] per unit time [fundamental dimension]. Frequency domain behaviour is then bound up in the nature of dynamical systems with implications for phase behaviour too, in which context sinusoids and their properties of summing to form arbitrary waveforms or transients allows us to specify that we deal in frequency of sinusoids, one of two related characteristic functions, the other being the complex exponential. Where, sinusoidal motion is a natural result of simple harmonic motion, a dynamic case with a linear restoring force for disturbances around an equilibrium; it is also connected to circular motion, where uniform circular motion is superposition of sinusoids with orthogonal axes and quadrature phase. Which brings in complex numbers and the complex exponential as in effect a vector approach. The discrete case, leading into difference equation based approaches, is related. My overall key point is that mathematical properties are tied into the logic of being and associated dynamics. That is, it is not an arbitrary intellectual game, in relevant aspects. KF
PS: This looks like a useful discussion https://fme.upc.edu/ca/arxius/butlleti-digital/riemann/071218_conferencia_atiyah-d_article.pdf