After months of diligent study I have finally become the person you edge away from at parties. At the last one I attended I began, after a few drinks, to dilate on alpha theory as usual. One of the guests suggested that I become a prophet for a new cult, which was certainly a lucky thing, and I want to thank him, because that joke would never have occurred to me on my own.
As with party-goers, so with blog-readers. The vast majority of my (former) readership has greeted alpha theory with some hostility but mostly indifference, and for excellent reason. It is a general theory, and humans have high sales resistance to general theories.
Generality offends in itself. Theories of human behavior apply to all humans, and that means you. If you’re anything like me, and you are, when you look at a graphed distribution of some human characteristic, no matter what it is, you harbor a secret hope that you fall at a tail, or better still, outside the distribution altogether. It is not that we are all above average, like the children of Lake Woebegon. Oh no: we are all extraordinary. Surely the statistician has somehow failed to account for me and my precious unique inviolable self. Nobody wants to be a data point. General theories, including alpha theory, often involve equations, and nobody likes an equation either.
General theories are also susceptible to error, the more susceptible the more general they are. An old academic joke about general surveys applies to general theories as well. I first heard it about Vernon Parrington’s Main Currents in American Thought, a once-common college text, but it has made the rounds in many forms. Whichever English professor you asked about Parrington, he would praise the book, adding parenthetically, “Of course he knows nothing about my particular subject.”
Someone seeking to explain a wide range of apparently disparate phenomena usually overlooks a few facts. By the time these are brought to his attention he is too heavily invested in the theory to give it up. He hides or explains away the offending facts and publishes his theory anyway, to world-wide yawns.
The gravest danger of a general theory is that it might be true — more precisely, that you may come to believe it. Believing a new general theory is a mighty expensive proposition. You’ve built up a whole complicated web of rules that have worked for you in the past, and now you have to go back and reevaluate them all in light of this new theory. This is annoying, and a gigantic energy sink besides. General theories, including alpha theory, tend to attract adherents from among the young, who have less to throw away — lower sunk costs, as the economists say. For most of us dismissing a new theory out of hand is, probabilistically, a winning strategy. Some might call this anti-intellectualism: I call it self-preservation.
(I will not go so far as to claim that alpha theory predicts its own resistance. Down that road lies madness. “You don’t believe in Scientology? Of course you don’t. Scientology can explain that! Wait! Where are you going?”)
General theorists often insist that anyone who disagrees with their theory find a flaw in its derivation. I have been known to take this line myself, and it is utterly unreasonable. If someone showed up at my door with a complicated theory purporting to demonstrate some grotesque proposition, say, that cannibalism conduces to human survival, and demanded that I show where he went wrong, I’d kick him downstairs. Yes, they laughed at Edison, they laughed at Fulton. They also laughed at a hundred thousand crackpot megalomaniacs while they were at it.
So if you still want alpha theory to dry up and blow away, I understand. No hard feelings. And if you’ve written me off as some kind of nut, well, could be. The thought has crossed my mind. I can assure you only that I ardently desire to be delivered from my dementia. It would do wonders for my social life.
(Addendum: I want to make it perfectly clear that, although I have written about alpha theory for several months now, I did not invent it. I am not nearly intelligent enough to have invented it. That honor belongs to “Bourbaki,” well-known to the readers of the comments. Me, I’m a sort of combination PR man and applied alpha engineer. Oh wait — there aren’t any applications yet. Don’t worry, there will be.)
It might do wonders for your social life–certainly an important consideration–but would it be so rewarding as the discovery of a great truth? Hang in there, my friend, this could be history-making, and the effort itself is never really wasted. Only the open and exercised mind, one with he courage to assert somethng, even has a chance at greatness.
Aaron,
OK, so you’re a megalomanic crackpot.
And?
Alpha theory may be totally bullshit.
So be it.
But it seems to me that there is meaning, or usefulness, in the energetics that have emereged as a result of your pursuit of it.
Or not.
And that, of course, is the question.
___The totally not pretentious answer of pretenses that are not cliches, certainly, because,I would never write such drivel___
As best as I can tell alpha theory supposes connections between fields of disparate and still in the process of being defined contentions (or ramifications) of science and probability as well as information relay and contrasts these with the laws of thermodynamics and what can be viewed as Bernoulli trials to explain emergence and behavior.
I do not get thermodynamics yet, not enough to see how it can be used to measure large systems of nonequilibrium. I get it generally, but in that general base lies the greatest potential for misunderstanding, as you yourself note. I still have not found satisfactory answers to certain assertions William Sidis made about thermodynamics. I still have not got my head around everything being resultant from thermodynamics and people. Trying to find where this theory goes wrong is so much more difficult than accepting your understanding of the subjects and conjecturing about it’s actual breadth or properties under those assertions.
Either way, you seem to have always been a striking and witty and defensive blogger, with a maverick tendency and a love of being precisely expressive where possible and ironic about those ideas and instances that make such logic or precision impossible as you understand it. I have been reading old posts in between everything else.
So, my suggestion as far as being social is concerned is the same thing I would tell any little kid: don’t talk to strangers. Don’t talk to those who would be stridently averse to a topic of conversation or line of reasoning about that topic or reasoned ideation in a setting where people are just trying to get fucked up or just plain fucked (euphemism: let their hair down). You are smart enough to know that even happily (ironic, earnest or what have you) presenting stuff that makes you sound smart about something can cut both ways *actually being smart about it is even more precarious* unless you possess the insistence of certainty and necessity. It is perfectly possible and reasonable to mind control other people with your certainty (and sense of this idea’s necessity) so long as you possess the ability to build logic they can personally associate with (simply draw from their experience or get them to talk about themselves, and point out how what they said is illustrative of ….). This was the in general conflict I had with a vast majority of the analogies used to illustrate points here (but this is a blog, so the practice is much more defensible, both as a way of getting us to learn things and in knowing that we can go learn them, then revisit).
In general, assuming you are not insecure and awkward around others, and assuming that you do not secretly resent their opinions and stances and lives for being what/ever they are (you would get a sense of generally not liking the room, the people in the room, a "general" sense of not quite fitting), so, assuming that, you should be able to convince most people of your topical validity with a conveyance of strong purpose. You can even give people who disagree with you a better understanding of your points in this manner, so long as you are somewhat subtle and nonabrasive (dont be cruel or belittling, but rather, inclusive) and actually care about them enough to care whether they understand.
The main thing is, if you were just popping off because the drinks were flowing and the mood was getting faster paced, your feelings were leaning towards being "high", it is the harmless talk of drink and diversion, and so basicly fuck anyone who seriously judged you. But were you to MEAN to get your point across, I have little doubt that you could do so (or did so). I just doubt that you really meant to.
Thanks again for the blog, it’s good challenging material. I am having to relearn geometry and algebra 2 now :*I so pardon my stupidity. My objection may very well come when: "the time these are brought to his attention he is too heavily invested in the theory to give it up. He hides or explains away" but, you know, if it made (and makes) you feel good, who really cares.
HaHaHaHa. Good day Aaron, I’ve got to go start relearnin everything ever now. Thanks a lot.
The difficulties alpha theory presents to its partygoing partisans are easy to imagine. On the other hand, you can get yourself into just as much trouble (albeit with different people) by coming on strong about who’s the greatest rock drummer of all time.
Leaving aside the merits of, say, Stewart Copeland, hats off to you in your quest after the utilitarian grail.
I have an intuitive feeling that the glories of post-Enlightenment western culture are very much worth defending. Sans god and utilitarianism, though, the defenses come off feeling merely heuristic and convincing no one who doesn’t want to be convinced. If alpha turns out to be a solid baseline for moral philosophy, it’s worth the suspicious looks at parties. If not, it’s worth it anyway; the current intersection of science and art is a good place to be (sez I, based only on the metric on ‘interestingness).
MeTooThen,
I think you put your cuticle on it when you said "But it seems to me that there is meaning, or usefulness, in the energetics that have emereged as a result of your pursuit of it." Never mind the "or not."
I think Aaron has found his general theory in thermodynamics. One can’t go wrong there.
Well, you know from the get go you’re going to get into trouble when you try to represent "the ethical" by an equation.
I liked it a lot, and i don’t think (and don’t think you’d think) it’s a knock to say I disagree with the basic premise of something descriptive-also-being-prescriptive.
But hell, there’s not buying something, and refusing to buy. I think you have a lot of people who don’t buy it, but haven’t refused to buy it – if you take my meaning.
Maybe you could start applying the math to the real world. The map is not the territory and all that but let’s see the praxis of the thing. Might encourage more people to try the thing on.
-keep punchin’!
JvE,
Maybe you could start applying the math to the real world. The map is not the territory and all that but let’s see the praxis of the thing. Might encourage more people to try the thing on.
Forthcoming. For now, read this.
From the article:
The coherence of the organism can most easily be appreciated by a recently developed noninvasive technique that allows one to see the whole organism down to the details of the molecules that make up its tissues.
Too many equations tend to turn people off but they’re all there if you wish to investigate. It’s better to start by checking predictions against simple problems and common sense. Althought it is not advisable to rely entirely on common sense because it may depend on too many unspecified assumptions.
Recall that there were three alpha-related properties for living systems: alphatropic, alphametric, and alphaphilic. We defined an error term, epsilon, for the alphatropic component. But it’s easy to see that such a term must also exist for how organisms calibrate alpha (alphametric) and how they behave (alphaphilic).
Aaron,
Let me see, alpha theory proposes that life is not a thing, but a number and that this number derived from the most difficult to understand abstractions of thermodynamics can inform us on anything, from what hair gel to buy to whether you can distinguish pain from a cold steel rail, by using thermodynamical equations as its polestar.
And you say you were not "intelligent" enough to have invented it.
Perhaps intelligence is the wrong word. A friend, who did many drugs at Yale, used to refer to this process as "mansioning".
The theory is informative only in so far as it recognizes that free energy is needed to beat back the the effects of the second law, and that all species develop one or a number of strategies to do this through a filtration process. In other words, Darwinism with a physics twist.
The rest is mansioning.
I have enjoyed the alpha series a great deal, and have even caught glimpses of glimmers of understanding. Unfortunately, my equation module was decommissioned a few years ago, unbeknownst to me. So, I keep checking back for the ‘for dummies’ version. Plus, I really like the rockin’ comment threads.
And may I also suggest, more stuff more often? Or is this not the kind of thing that lends itself to that?
this is a wild ride. i hope it’s not over. nothing has ever motivated me to refresh my understanding of science like this. to sit back and watch this develop. there are so many books to read!
can i expect more?
i admire you for trying to pull this off. just remember for all the blowback you might get at parties, there are a few people lurking in the background trying to make sense of it all.
you can’t change the way people react to new ideas.
it’s elegant. it’s beautiful.
Wait, so Bourbaki really is the mastermind here? That would explain why he’s been the one fielding all the questions… ah well, it matters not. Both of you are smarter than I am. But I’m idly curious now as to how you know eachother and how you came up with this.
Bill’s comments above strike me as partially valid insofar as he criticizes the lack of real "meat" introduced so far. But I think he’s asking too much for the moment; alpha theory is a framework that unifies various subjects (evolution, information theory, economics, etc) into one grand program. That in itself is well worth the price of admission — such consilience is one of the goals of science, after all.
I’m going to second the Fat Guy’s call for more stuff more often though. :)
Mr. McIntosh,
But I’m idly curious now as to how you know each other and how you came up with this.
Mr. Haspel and I are former colleagues. He’s a tenacious polymath and an excellent writer. I thought he’d make the perfect partner in crime for a project like this–assuming that I could convince him that the theory was plausible. He’s not shy about calling bullshit on a stupid idea. More importantly, however, he’s honest enough to not call bullshit until he knows the idea is stupid.
I’m very grateful to him for taking the time to understand it and to present here.
I started fumbling with the mathematical tools during graduate school to avoid real experiments–one of my experiments involved murine pancreatic cells. I had to harvest them myself.
The quantitative tools came in handy when I switched to finance. I was surprised to see that the standard heat equation played such a prominent role.
The Black-Scholes equation closely resembles the heat equation in physics, with an important difference: the sign of the term containing the time derivative is reversed.
The theory itself grew out of bits and pieces of cross-disciplinary problems. Its scope expanded when I showed it to a friend who was majoring in philosophy. He actually wrote the first paper on it but met with a lot of resistance because of the math and physics.
As an ethical theory, alpha offers an objective criterion to compare solutions to problems. Our conversations led us to conclude that the alpha maximizing path is to be preferred. That’s very different from conjuring fixed recipes to problems. In fact, alpha rejects the hard recipes of utilitarianism. The information set (the filtration) is far too large.
I planned to submit it to a journal but it ended up being a lot of work. I went through the initial process of presenting it to colleagues at Columbia, Rockefeller, Harvard and MIT. The responses were either encouraging or hostile–but there were no flaws exposed. The generality of the theory was viewed as a handicap in academia.
Journals are slow and expensive and the theory doesn’t neatly fit into a nice category. A blog just seemed more timely. We wanted to openly derive the theory before trying to apply it. It’s easy enough for anyone to forward the URL to their favorite scientist or mathematician.
I’ve been applying it to arcane (and proprietary) problems.
Mr. Haspel has a few applications queued up that should prove to be considerably more engaging–especially to the culture-bloggers. I can’t speak for him, but the collaboration has been a lot of fun for me. Several people have helped with the theory. But it sets off the crackpot meter in a big way so I suspect some of them will only step forward if it gains some traction. But at parties, people have started asking for a book.
If the theory survives scrutiny, I’m looking forward to writing it with Mr. Haspel.
And although tone doesn’t translate so well on a blog, hashing out the ideas here with everyone has been a blast. A former girlfriend went to law school at Yale–I plan to follow up to see if she can explain mansioning to me.
Thanks for indulging my nosiness. I’m like you in that I like learning about the personalities and circumstances almost as much as the theories (consequently, the Bell and Waldrop books you mentioned are now on my wishlist).
It is a pity that broad theories like this have become casualties of the narrow specialization of different fields. Fortunately the internet gives us a half-decent proxy for peer-review, but it’s still no substitute for having people who really really know the stuff it deals with go over it with a fine-toothed comb. I’d keep shopping this around for a more qualified audience in the mean time.
I too would buy the book.
So Bourbaki is Kan?
Let me see, alpha theory proposes that life is not a thing, but a number and that this number derived from the most difficult to understand abstractions of thermodynamics can inform us on anything, from what hair gel to buy to whether you can distinguish pain from a cold steel rail, by using thermodynamical equations as its polestar.
What Bill? I thought it said the "meaning" of life was a number? Life is the process of being alphatropic, alphametric, and alphaphilic contrasted to epsilon. Or am I backwards, and life is a number and its meaning is that it is a number? Answer please Bill.
Tommy,
"Seek to maximize free energy, Grasshopper." That is what it all boils down to.
Now for your questions. Life,the meaning of life, the number of imaginary bald men hiding behind your imaginary closet doors are all acceptable answers. And none of them are. You see alpha is this number that LACKS REFERENCE UNITS. It is not a number of anything, it is just a number. And although the number refers to nothing at all as well as everything in the universe, we know that bigger is better. And if we fail to maximize this number and screw up (epsilon), well that is a bad thing.
Everyone,
It just struck me, one of the underlying assumptions of alpha theory is that existence exists and that proper modeling of reality is helpful in maximizing alpha. But what if that is wrong? What if, sometimes, IMPROPER MODELING increases alpha?
I submit for your examination the catechism of America. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal…pursuit of happiness". How many lies, half-truths and errors are there? The "truths" are neither true nor self-evident. There probably isn’t a Creator. Rights are always alienable. You get my point.
But isn’t America an alpha creation machine? The catechism is wrong, but the results are inarguable. America rocks. It is founded on lies. They are lovely lies, wonderful lies, lies that that for the first time in history showed the world the way to live like human beings. These lies create happiness, create wealth, create hope, not just for us, but as lamp unto the world.
But they are lies.
I am reminded of the brilliant South Park episode where the beliefs of the Mormons are dissected. Every time a story from the Book of Mormon is recounted, a chorus sings "dum-de-dum-dum-dum". By the end, the foul-mouthed South Park boys confront their Mormon counterpart with the sheer silliness of the religion. The boy responds that he knows, but that he has a happy family who loves him and that the faith creates great people. So he tells Cartman and the rest to screw off.
Alpha theory holds as a fundamental assumption that truth is good. Doubtful.
I can assure you only that I ardently desire to be delivered from my dementia. It would do wonders for my social life.
"New Yorkers suspect that we may be too smart for our own good. It is a form of self-flattery as self-criticism"
(from here, and the rest of the article doesn’t apply)
Bill,
People can increase alpha without realizing they’re doing it. No universal strong solutions, etc. In some circumstances, useful fictions can be alphatropic. But it’s important to note that it’s not these fictions themselves that are the useful part; it’s what they get people to do that’s the important bit. We can just as easily justify all the good stuff like free speech, private property and divided government without any of those dubious bits of shaky reasoning, and probably improve on it as well. Knowing the truth is not always and everywhere alphatropic, but it is so often enough to follow the general rule that good modelling is better than bad modelling.
Mr. Kaplan,
this number derived from the most difficult to understand abstractions of thermodynamics
It took Kepler years crunching numbers to come up with three laws to describe orbits.
"Seek to maximize free energy, Grasshopper." That is what it all boils down to.
Nope.
alpha : dimensionless
free energy: joules
alpha != free energy
You see alpha is this number that LACKS REFERENCE UNITS.
This is a good thing. Are you familiar with how dimensionless parameters are used in physics?
What if, sometimes, IMPROPER MODELING increases alpha?
Then your original model was wrong. So what?
Alpha theory holds as a fundamental assumption that truth is good.
Where is that stated in the derivation? Only alpha is asserted as "good". You’re selling another universal strong solution. I thought they all met Kenny’s fate.
Bill,
Not only is Matt right, but people can also be screwed up about some things and be "on to something" with regard to others, e.g., the Mormons. The fact that they are mystics, doesn’t preclude them from having some good–and true–ethical points. If I may be so bold, it’s only the true points that cause them to flourish, not the mystical ones. The American "catechism" is also on to something big. While rights can be violated, they are built-in properties because of our present configuration. The authors knew all about, and were delineating, the various ways rights can and have been violated. Same with equality. They knew quite well that men differed in every way that can be measured, but they were asserting, in the face of that, that the existence of "rights" pertains to them all in precisely the same way.
As to "self-evident"–this was just wrong. Jefferson had originally written, "sacred and undeniable," I believe–perfectly true. I believe it was Franklin who wanted to put it in the face of Europe, as it were, with that jab (and, purge the religious taint he saw in "sacred," which I do not.)
But until and unless your fantasy world–or anyone else’s–actually pertians to this one, whether rationally or accidentally, the principles derived thereby can result only in disaster
Lies are not lies if they are believed.
Micha Ghertner (who is also smarter than I am) wrote a good post on this topic a while ago.
ah Parrington!
he IS great (especially the middle volume on the "romantic revolution")…but he also doesn’t have a clue what he’s talking about!
I’m a die-hard particularist Aaron, and no, you haven’t brought me over to the side of truth and keys to all reality (any more than Parrington proved to me that all American thinkers have either been Jeffersonians or Hamiltonians–but watching him attempting to affix these labels on people like Emerson and Hawthorne is goddamned amusing!)
Still…I’ve enjoyed this macrotheoretical outburst…and, judging by the fact that you’ve emerged from it with your sense of humour intact, I’d say your social life will be just fine!
but couldn’t we go back to arguing about Yvor Winters, just for a little while?
Dave
Jim,
I can’t speak for Tommy, but I think his point was either 1) that it’s not lying if you believe your own false statements, it’s just error, or possibly 2) that there are certain classes of statements which are true because everyone believes them to be true (that dollar bills are worth something, for example).
Matt,
If that is what he meant, I stand corrected with my apologies.
why is there anyone left to argue for the divine given its obscene history? the founding principles of this country were a way out from those odious lies.
those divine fantasies have been a meat-grinder for millions of lives for centuries. for what? to be in this group and not that group? that group is murdered so let’s split up and fight over finer details of this god’s plan while we wait around for him to show up?
recipe for greatness? sorry. it just doesn’t add up for me. wanna show me your math? the ideals we cherish make it possible to build a more solid foundation of TRUTH rather than indulge in yet another layer of lies.
we can’t delude ourselves with prizes and wealth to put enough lipstick on that pig.
people need to believe something. but wouldn’t it be better if that belief was NOT built on provincial fantasy predicated on ignorance? i mean, faith?
isn’t the freedom to challenge ideas worth exercising? didn’t the greeks cherish comfort so they could think rather than simply react?
aaron was bold to lay it out all out on the table like this.
lay your ideas next to his and see how far you get. ANYONE may freely verify alpha. but to take this ride, you have to crack open your skull and, for once, flip the switch to ON and learn how the universe works.
"oh no: we are all extraordinary."
we are. it’s a big universe.
put me down for a copy of that book.
Tommy,
If no one’s around to hear that tree called reality fall, then lies are the truth? I don’t know about you, but when I discover that I had been wrong about something, I am no longer satisfied with my previous condition, however ignorantly blissful the state of mind had been. Moreover, I find that I am more powerful–my filtration improved, my tools refined. There must be this crazy little thing called "reality" out there cascading, churning and throbbing according to the laws of physics, whether I had ever realized it or not. If I had reason to know this and ignored it, and if I spread then the opposite idea, it would be a lie, Tommy. It would be a lie no matter how many chumps I got to believe it.
Bourbaki,
It may have taken Kepler three years, but it took Hawking 25 to deal with the second law and its implications in black holes. These are difficult concepts.
Your exposition of alpha in three equations is true enough, but how do you increase the dimensionless number? Would it be by, um, increasing free energy?
As for the dimensionless Navier-Stokes equations, I now see why you think this is good. It is the same reason you thought Godel applies to everything. Those equations are meant to equate two similar systems. What they do not do is equate everything with everything else. It is a case of overreach.
Alpha theory assumes truth is good by the filtration process. This process is performed naturally in the life experience of unthinking beasts who prosper to the extent of conformance with reality. I have given a case where a country excels because or in spite of non-conformance with reality. What does this say about filtration for creatures with volition?
Bill: One might increase alpha by, um, "increasing the free energy" (enthalpy is what you mean, not quite the same thing), and one might also increase it by, um, reducing positive entropy, i.e., by processing the available energy more efficiently. These are two distinct strategies, and alpha theory can most certainly not be boiled down into "maximize free energy." In fact I don’t think alpha can be boiled down any further than I already have here. A theory of everything in 10,000 words or less strikes me as pretty terse.
As for filtrations, obviously the more accurate they are, the better you do. In this sense alpha theory values conformation with reality, though not truth, in and of itself, as some abstract good. Alpha theory suggests that America succeeds insofar as American laws, values, and traditions model reality accurately. This is not a revolutionary proposition I suspect you believe it yourself and pointing out a few falsehoods in the Preamble to the Constitution scarcely suffices to refute it.
I will let Bourbaki speak for himself, as I have no doubt he will, about your misapprehensions of Gdel and Navier-Stokes.
Dear Aaron,
It warms the cockles of my heart to see all your blog readers encouraging you in your alpha preoccupation. I will remind you that its easy for them youre not (I assume) at most of their parties.
Like all your enlightened readers, I come down on the side of intellectual investigation, particularly of a theory that, if correct, explains pretty much everything. But couldnt you mix it up, just for an evening, with a little current events, or literature, or music, or politics? Wait strike that last one.
I think its possible to be an indefatigable alpha enthusiast and an entertaining dinner guest. If you think you want to give it a try, Ill arrange another dinner party. Ill even make that venison again.
I will happily eat your chow any time you say. You need only unmuzzle me at the table.
Literature will again be discussed here, novels and poetry both, and soon, but I have to get off my lazy ass and finish the writing.
Aaron and Bourbaki,
Just a simple question about alpha theory: What are its formally undecidable propositions?
Mr. Kaplan,
Your exposition of alpha in three equations is true enough […]
This is progress.
Especially in light of your (warranted) initial reaction. We can now consider application with more confidence.
[Paging Mr. Haspel…]
If we make errors, we can look for them at a higher level rather than in the foundations of the theory. The foundations of alpha theory are very abstract. What lies outside thermodynamics and information theory?
As you pointed out, it even applies to black holes.
But characterization is not reality. A perfect model of a hurricane is still not a hurricane.
Mr. Haspel is right–you can’t distill the ideas any further using currently available tools. Truth, beauty, freedom, free energy or angular momentum can all be alphatropic. But you can not swap in proxies for alpha and pursue them as if they were equivalent.
For example, if I were in an accident and a paramedic told me that my leg was fine to prevent me from going into shock long enough to stitch up my gaping stump, that "lie" would be good. Here comes that F@t-1 again.
You’ve interweaved cold fusion, Noether, Navier-Stokes and Godel but without explaining the substance of your argument.
I don’t think we’ll clarify things by trotting out fiber bundles and differential forms. Obfuscation is not skepticism.
Just a simple question about alpha theory: What are its formally undecidable propositions?
It’s an empirical theory. You don’t decide empirical principles. Thanks to the first law, you only need accounting. Arithmetic was proven consistent by Gerhard Gentzen using transfinite induction.
Bourbaki,
So alpha theory, being an empirical theory, recognizes the difference between empirical and logical truth, between the a priori and the a posteriori?
Matt,
More information, all other things being equal, is alphatropic. A "lie" can only be "alphatropic" within a delimited context. And, then, the inertia of established belief makes the lie, eventually, a problem too.
Objections?
H.H. (sis),
Yeah, I can see Emily and Yvor impatiently tapping their feet in heaven (iambically, of course) with all of this!
I would say, for anyone who doubts that a will to be believe is an ingredient of truth, to read Noam Chomsky, Derrida, and Boris Sidis. Anyone who wants to argue that truth is what exists (or is) is only seeing part of the equation. Lies also exist, and they exist, most often, as truths. Truth, on the other hand, can exist as a lie. Here is how: existence and reality is a composite whole, not an individual interpretation. Sorry, but turning calculus into nonequilibrium thermodynamics has made me grouchy, and I have had to sacrifice video games :(
Suggestion: to be an interesting Dinner Guest avoid being the center of attention for several moments, watch how the social nebulas develop, and then engage the people with the most social gravity in something that will both challenge and encourage them.
Good luck. By the way, I’m with Aaron, "maximize free energy" isn’t alpha theory, that is some stupid strong solution you derived. Alpha theory tells WHAT WE DO and WHY WE DO IT, and that CAN potentially inform what TO do.
No objections here, Jim. Falsehoods are alphatropic in very narrow circumstances, but generally speaking we get better results by getting as close as we can to the truth.
Tommy – Truth is simply correspondence to the facts. That’s all. I have no patience for Derrida’s turgid obscurantism. Read Tarski instead.
Matt: perhaps lacking patience is alphatropic, certainly it is an imperative of your actionable pathing and is a component of your boundaries and limits. But, I am not here to debate taste. If you can explain to me nonequilibrium thermodynamics, oh, and how such is able to be counted on to model something as complex as a universe, man, I will give up Derrida and go read Tarski. Until then, I will still be slowly going mad. Hooray.
Tommy,
You’re charging yourself with a big task. Pre-calculus to stochastic calculus is a trip typically measured in years.
Learning how to do science is not unlike learning to play an instrument. It takes time and patience and lots of practice.
There are some decent references online but you’d be better served by finding someone who can teach you in person.
Finally, it helps to listen to lots of music. There are excellent biographies and histories of these fields.
What are you reading?
The more I read about science and math and the brain the more I realize how much of an attempt it all is to explain the same thing. I cannot quite express this yet, but I am begining to feel like much of what someone says one way is EXACTLY what another person said his way, and that the differences in understanding are not so much neccessary as they are neccessarily understood. Also, I have been lazy as of late, chasing tail. Music is great, I am a rapper of quite fantastic skill. Emergence: John Henry Holland. Great book. Noam Chomsky 9/11 and The Umbrella of US Power, also, Understanding Noam Chomsky, to go along with my online readings of his linguistic theories. Also, a book called The Big Bang. Naked, by David Sedaris. Wigfeild by Amy Sedaris Stephen Colbert and Paul Dinello. On the Shoulders of Giants: Stephen Hawking. I think if I spent as much time specializing as I do combining, I would get through the math in a matter of weeks/months depending on which part we are talking about. Fermi writes with a clarity that is refreshing about math that is really hard, and I am not going from Pre-Calc, I have had to learn Algebra and Geometry over as well. So slow going. I am also reading the "sequel" to the Elegant Universe, the name of which has slipped my seroquel raddled wits.
What are you reading? Did that universal consciousness book do it for you?
There is at least one strong solution — NO SLAVERY. To the extent that alpha theory advocates slavery over a non-slave owning solution because alpha is higher, then alpha theory is wrong and immoral, period. It is the achilles heel of all consequentialist theory.
Not quite all, Bill. Do I really have to remind you…? Doesn’t your issue for the consequentialist depend upon his epistemological position on "strong solutions"?
This problem has already been stumbled over repeatedly, and the answers–inevitably–have been inadequate, that is, FOR A SYSTEM OF ETHICS. Strong solutions are held and used every day. But, really, this is not alpha’s problem at all, unless–as is unfortunately insisted–this is a complete system of morality. For all of its glories and accomplishments, alpha can never be that.
Mr. Kaplan,
To the extent that alpha theory advocates slavery over a non-slave owning solution because alpha is higher, then alpha theory is wrong and immoral, period.
Would you like to demonstrate how slavery would maximize alpha? Do you think a society would be more or less adaptive with a significant portion of its brainpower shackled to their masters?
How did you choose slavery as opposed to, say, murder? How about nuclear self-destruction?
Tommy,
I’m reading Kandel’s book (Chapter 12 of 62) and started Edelman (Chapter 3) but haven’t read enough to post anything yet. So far, so good.
Bill,
Take note of the (typical) manner of evasion here: the intensely strong demand for YOU to demonstrate alpha’s strong assertion (and one that you actually deny, no less!) about there being no strong solutions.
Mr. Valliant,
The case against slavery has already been made. It is both a consequence of the derivation (an information/adaptive problem) and also supported by the works cited by other readers. See Hayek and Mr. Kaplan’s own recommendation for Axelrod.
It’s not an attempt at evasion but, rather, an attempt to encourage people to work out the solutions for themselves so that the underlying principles become clearer.
No one said that there are "no strong solutions".
That statement is absurd.
There are no universal strong solutions.
You’ve mentioned contextual certainty. A universal strong solution would be a response independent of all conceivable context.
Though the heavens may fall.
In other words, even if a new context arose in which adherence to this universal strong solution would destroy all life, you would continue to abide by it.
Mr. McIntosh’s recommendation of Micha Gertner (above) is worth a read.
Bourbaki,
I chose slavery because it is a system, rather than an act, which can be justified by its proponents as enriching the general welfare. That assertion, however correct, has no bearing on the morality of the issue. Accordingly, in slavery I find the broadest gulf between the "ethics" of alpha and morality in the ordinary sense. The issue creates a universal strong solution.
Jim has it exactly right.
I chose slavery because it is a system, rather than an act, which can be justified by its proponents as enriching the general welfare.
Anything can be justified by its proponents. That’s the game played by traditional ethical systems.
I’d like to see your justification in alpha terms. You’ve got a nasty epsilon problem on your hands.
The issue creates a universal strong solution.
According to your statement, the institutionalized exploitation of one group by another is the most alphatropic arrangement of a society.
You have it exactly wrong.
Bourbaki,
Under your system, it matters what imputs you use to argue the casae for or against slavery. In my view, it doesn’t matter what imputs are used.
So you’re an advocate for slavery because the Bible says it’s ok? After all, there’s no commandment against it and Leviticus is practically an owner’s manual for human chattle.
Or is slavery wrong because the prevailing moral force of will of its opponents happened to be stronger than its proponents?
No inputs? Are you using divine revelation?
We clearly did not do a good job explaining strong and weak solutions. This is something that must be addressed.
Stating that no strong solution is optimal all of the time is not equivalent to asserting that all strong solutions are optimal some of the time.
You should bust out your Venn diagrams.
Why do I do this? Gluttony for self-abuse?
In any event, the specific factual context is what defines the "universe" for our "universal strong solutions."
"No slavery" requires only one contextual specification I can see: that the context is human beings. Ants and bees are excluded. Only the rational animal needs political freedom and only because of the precision of this context–"rationality" cannot function by force. Or, put the other way, freedom maximizes the use of human intelligence.
It’s not just politics, either–this context–HUMAN BEINGS–defines the "universe" to which ALL of ethics–all of my normative, universal strong solutions–pertain.
Ethics is a senseless proposition for the non-human, as I have repeatedly insisted. However, the context of human needs–our present configuration–creates the much more delimited context in which we can generate such strong solutions, such as the rational prohibition against slavery.