Systemic Isolation

[AbruptSLR]

To continue with my last few posts about the Hegelian dynamic between Scientism & Populism, I provide the first attached image of the Recommended Concentration Pathways, RCP, scenario groups (with individual assumed concentration pathways) as presented by Fuss et. al. 2014.  I think that scientists should make it clear to both the general public (including to populists) and policy makers (including the Trump Administration) that the world is only going to follow one (and only one) GHG Concentration Pathway.  Scientists should then ask decision makers to publically state which pathway they are working to follow and once identified then relevant scientists should post all of the assumptions associated with such a pathway such as: population growth, permafrost degradation rate, etc. and then with passing of time the scientists should publically report how all of the key assumptions compare with what actually happened in the same what that sport statistics are published.  This way the decision makers would be held accountable and the general public would feel more engaged (as they do with sports).

Edit: My general point is that when scientists release averaged RCP information (as a thesis event) like shown in the second attached image they create uncertainty that results in an populist antithesis where the Trump Administration will likely not comply with the Paris Pact commitments because they say there is doubt.

[AbruptSLR]

When one choices to define truth based on power (and/or authority) rather than upon evidence, one separates (isolates) oneself from the rest of the system (i.e. systemic isolation); which then causes the rest of the system to act as a Hegelian antithesis and setting into motion a Hegelian dialectic double spiral of thesis/antithesis/synthesis through time.  This dynamic creates the "bubbles" (or event horizons, see Replies #154, 167 & 168) that leads to the protagonist (thesis) –antagonist (antithesis) double spiral that creates the tension that drives most storylines, from romantic comedies to political thrillers; and just such a deep storyline underlays the Scientism-Populism dynamic that I have discusses in my last many posts.

Another aspect of the Scientism – Populism dynamic is illustrated by Steve Bannon's opposition to the 'managerialism' associated with climate change scientism.  As mentioned, Bannon has retained Nicholas Taleb (the author of the book: "Antifragility: Things that Gain from Disorder"), to develop ideas that can be used to justify defunding climate science in America, in order to reduce the systemic fragility associated with over managing both the climate and over managing socio-economic systems in order to reduce GHG emissions.  In this regards, I note that all of the proposed later stages of the Paris Pact include some form of geoengineering, and introduce some risk of overstraining the fragile international financial systems.

To reiterate the Scientism-Populism storyline goes like this:  Scientism facilitates over (false) systemic managerialism, such as when hedge fund quants (that are frequently physicists) created the systemic fragilities that lead to the 2008 financial collapse that energized Bannon to embrace Taleb's antifragility approach that underlies alt-right populism.  In this alt-right deep storyline the common man has worked hard following the systemic rules, but has been betrayed by the intellectuals (including those serving the globalist Davos crowd) by using transferring risk (from over managerialism) to the common man such as in the case of the 'too big to fail' banks during the 2008 collapse. In this storyline this betrayal by intellectuals has led to the alt-right (kleptocratic) populist movement around the world (including Brexit, Trump, etc) in order to drain the systemic swap of intellectuals (in order to protect the vitality of the common man) by such measures as the Trump (& Lamar Smith) assault on science.

Such a Scientism-Populism dialectic storyline, helps to explain why Trump's efforts to negotiate the repeal & replacement of Obamacare failed; because as illustrated in the movie "A Beautiful Mind" (see Reply #109) when one seeks a resolution (synthesis) of a group negotiation using a business model of personal (kleptocratic) self-interest rather than by seeking a Nash equilibrium that has underlain business-union negotiations, then one achieve substandard results (that leads to unnecessary suffering by one or more parties).  This Obamacare negotiation failure can also be understood as follows:  When two parties negotiate using a business model to divide a stack of one hundred dollar bills, there are one hundred ways to divide the stack & one negotiates to maximize their own self-interest; but when a large group of people negotiate (such as for health care) there is only one viable solution and the purpose of the group negotiation is to find that one solution (or Nash equilibrium). 

My illustration from the movie "A Beautiful Mind" illustrates that such thesis/antithesis/synthesis negotiations are going on continuously within a human mind (including within John Nash's mind in the movie) to reach a resolution to allow oneself to deal with the chaotic swamp of reality, and why mindfulness meditation can be used to reduce systemic isolation from the self-create bubbles that we all live within when we use power/authority to determine the "truth".  In this sense, the human mind consists of a swamp of cravings and aversions originating from both nature & nurture of one's origins.  Thus per Hegel, within the historical anthropogenic dialectic spiral of cultures through the ages from hunter-gatherer to pre-industrial to industrial to post-industrial to the 4th Industrial Revolution, has led to institutional & cultural & educational & social refinements that hopefully can reduce human suffering by the reduction of the reliance on systemic (and/or mental) '-isms'. 

However, given that it is doubtful that decision makers will be able to sufficient dampen such Hegelian dialectic dynamics, it is advisable for all parties to more thoroughly evaluate the potential impacts of the coming 4th Industrial Revolution on both our pre & post – collapse socio-economic systems in order to promote true antifragility for the planet and the humans that depend on its well-being (see the attached image with Franklin's advice).

[AbruptSLR]

As a follow-up to my last post about how the Hegelian dialectic double helix metaphor, with regard to cravings & aversions, can also shed light on the bubbles that people live in, due to their willful denial of change.  This observation can then provide insights in to how information theory associated with the Holographic Principle addresses issues like duality, transitions and the correspondence principle.

See the linked Wikipedia article entitled: "AdS/CFT correspondence"; which underpins the Holographic Principle/Theory.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AdS/CFT_correspondence

Extract: "In theoretical physics, the anti-de Sitter/conformal field theory correspondence, sometimes called Maldacena duality or gauge/gravity duality, is a conjectured relationship between two kinds of physical theories. On one side are anti-de Sitter spaces (AdS) which are used in theories of quantum gravity, formulated in terms of string theory or M-theory. On the other side of the correspondence are conformal field theories (CFT) which are quantum field theories, including theories similar to the Yang–Mills theories that describe elementary particles.
The duality represents a major advance in our understanding of string theory and quantum gravity. This is because it provides a non-perturbative formulation of string theory with certain boundary conditions and because it is the most successful realization of the holographic principle, an idea in quantum gravity originally proposed by Gerard 't Hooft and promoted by Leonard Susskind.
It also provides a powerful toolkit for studying strongly coupled quantum field theories. Much of the usefulness of the duality results from the fact that it is a strong-weak duality: when the fields of the quantum field theory are strongly interacting, the ones in the gravitational theory are weakly interacting and thus more mathematically tractable. This fact has been used to study many aspects of nuclear and condensed matter physics by translating problems in those subjects into more mathematically tractable problems in string theory.
The AdS/CFT correspondence was first proposed by Juan Maldacena in late 1997. Important aspects of the correspondence were elaborated in articles by Steven Gubser, Igor Klebanov, and Alexander Markovich Polyakov, and by Edward Witten. By 2015, Maldacena's article had over 10,000 citations, becoming the most highly cited article in the field of high energy physics."


The following reference discusses how the Holographic Principle can by related to Holographic Entanglement Entropy; which in HIOTTOE can be utilized to reduce systemic suffering.

Davood Momeni, Mir Faizal, Ratbay Myrzakulov (2017), "Holographic Cavalieri Principle as a Universal relation between Holographic Complexity and Holographic Entanglement Entropy"


https://arxiv.org/pdf/1703.01337.pdf

Abstract: "In this paper, we will propose a universal relation between the holographic complexity (dual to a volume in AdS) and the holographic entanglement entropy (dual to an area in AdS). We will explicitly demonstrate that our conjuncture hold for all a metric asymptotic to AdS3, and then argue that such a relation should hold in general due to the AdS version of the Cavalieri principle. We will demonstrate that it hold for Janus solution, which have been recently been obtained in type IIB string theory. We will also show that this conjecture holds for a circular disk. This conjecture will be used to show that the proposal that the complexity equals action, and the proposal that the complexity equal volume can represent the same physics. Thus, using this conjecture, we will show that the black holes are fastest computers, using the proposal that complexity equals volume."

Extract: "In this letter, we propose that a non-trivial but universal relation exists between the holographic quantum complexity and the holographic entanglement entropy. As this relates a quantity which is dual to a volume in AdS to a quantity which is dual to an area in AdS, it can be considered as a holographic version of Cavalieri principle. Furthermore, in analogy with the usual Cavalieri principle, the regions analysed were assumed to exist between two parallel AdS slice. We argued that such a conjuncture should hold in general, as it is based on the AdS version of the cavalieri principle. We also explicitly demonstrated this to be the case for AdS3. However, as it is not possible to obtain a general expression for the holographic entanglement entropy, we made a conjecture that such a universal relation should hold. This is because the higher dimensional case would be conceptually similar to this case, however, they would be computationally more complicated."

[AbruptSLR]

As a follow-up to my last two posts, I note that science can be considered as an onion with many different layers with different but corresponding interpretations of reality, and to reduce systemic isolation (& associated suffering) one needs to transcend the bubble (or onion layer) that one lives, in order to see reality from various/group points of view.  In this regards correspondence (& duality) are not only related to the Holographic Principle, but to all of science as discussed in the linked Wikipedia article entitled: "Correspondence principle"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correspondence_principle

Extract: "In physics, the correspondence principle states that the behavior of systems described by the theory of quantum mechanics (or by the old quantum theory) reproduces classical physics in the limit of large quantum numbers. In other words, it says that for large orbits and for large energies, quantum calculations must agree with classical calculations

The principle was formulated by Niels Bohr in 1920, though he had previously made use of it as early as 1913 in developing his model of the atom.

The term is also used more generally, to represent the idea that a new theory should reproduce the results of older well-established theories (which become limiting cases) in those domains where the old theories work.

Classical quantities appear in quantum mechanics in the form of expected values of observables, and as such the Ehrenfest theorem (which predicts the time evolution of the expected values) lends support to the correspondence principle.


Related recent references on the topic of the importance of understanding correspondence (w.r.t. transcending the bubbles that we all live in), include the following:


Slava Emelyanov (2017), "Holography versus correspondence principle: Eternal Schwarzschild–anti–de Sitter geometry", Phys. Rev. D 95, 064044, DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.95.064044

https://journals.aps.org/prd/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevD.95.064044

Abstract: "It is shown that the correspondence principle and the holographic principle are incompatible in the background of an eternal Schwarzschild–anti–de Sitter geometry. The argument is based on the observation that algebraic structures of local quantum field and conformal field theory (CFT) operators are not equivalent. This implies, in particular, that the bulk CFT must be singular near the black-hole horizon. A CFT Hilbert space representation is elaborated which may correspond to the AdS black hole in the dual theory."



Qian Wang and H. T. Quan (2017), "Understanding quantum work in a quantum many-body system", Phys. Rev. E 95, 032113; DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.95.032113


https://journals.aps.org/pre/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevE.95.032113


Abstract: "Based on previous studies in a single-particle system in both the integrable [Jarzynski, Quan, and Rahav, Phys. Rev. X 5, 031038 (2015)] and the chaotic systems [Zhu, Gong, Wu, and Quan, Phys. Rev. E 93, 062108 (2016)], we study the correspondence principle between quantum and classical work distributions in a quantum many-body system. Even though the interaction and the indistinguishability of identical particles increase the complexity of the system, we find that for a quantum many-body system the quantum work distribution still converges to its classical counterpart in the semiclassical limit. Our results imply that there exists a correspondence principle between quantum and classical work distributions in an interacting quantum many-body system, especially in the large particle number limit, and further justify the definition of quantum work via two-point energy measurements in quantum many-body systems."


Hyunseok Jeong, Youngrong Lim, and M. S. Kim. "Coarsening Measurement References and the Quantum-to-Classical Transition." Physical Review Letters, DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.112.010402

https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.112.010402

Abstract: "We investigate the role of inefficiency in quantum measurements in the quantum-to-classical transition, and consistently observe the quantum-to-classical transition by coarsening the references of the measurements (e.g., when and where to measure). Our result suggests that the definition of measurement precision in quantum theory should include the degree of the observer’s ability to precisely control the measurement references."

See also the linked article entitled: "Quantum-to-classical transition may be explained by fuzziness of measurement references"

https://phys.org/news/2014-01-quantum-to-classical-transition-fuzziness.html

Extract: "The quantum and classical worlds are clearly very different, but how a physical system transitions between them is much less clear. The most well-known attempt to explain the quantum-to-classical transition is decoherence, which is the idea that interactions with the environment destroy quantum coherence, causing a quantum system to become classical.

But in more recent years, physicists have been investigating alternative explanations based on an observer's limited ability to control the precision of the measurements made on a system. The idea is that a system that appears to exhibit quantum behavior when observed with very precise measurements will appear to behave classically if the measurements are too coarse or fuzzy. In such a scenario, the coarsening of measurements forces the quantum-to-classical transition.
The problem is, fuzziness in measurements does not always result in the quantum-to-classical transition, and physicists aren't sure what exact conditions of the measurement process are necessary to definitively force the quantum-to-classical transition.

In a new study published in Physical Review Letters, physicists Hyunseok Jeong and Youngrong Lim at Seoul National University in Seoul, Korea, and M. S. Kim at Imperial College London in the UK, have proposed an explanation.

They explain that a complete measurement process is composed of two parts: one part is to set and control a measurement reference (such as timing or angle), and the other is the final detection. All of the previous studies have focused on coarsening the resolution of the final detection.

Here, the physicists looked at both parts of the measurement process and found that their coarsening leads to completely different outcomes. Their main result is that coarsening the measurement reference always forces the quantum-to-classical transition, while coarsening the final detection does not. This is because increasing the "macroscopicity" of the system, such as by increasing the number of photons in an entangled photon state, can make up for the coarseness of the final detection, but not for the coarseness of the measurement reference."

&

Madhav Krishnan V, Tanmoy Biswas, Sibasish Ghosh (2017), "Coarse-graining of measurement and quantum-to-classical transition in the bipartite scenario", arXiv:1703.00502v1

https://arxiv.org/abs/1703.00502


Abstract: "The connection between coarse-graining of measurement and emergence of classicality has been investigated for some time, if not well understood. Recently in (PRL 112, 010402, (2014)) it was pointed out that coarse-graining measurements can lead to non-violation of Bell-type inequalities by a state which would violate it under sharp measurements. We study here the effects of coarse-grained measurements on bipartite cat states. We show that while it is true that coarse-graining does indeed lead to non-violation of a Bell-type inequality, this is not reflected at the state level. Under such measurements the post-measurement states can be non-classical (in the quantum optical sense) and in certain cases coarse-graning can lead to an increase in this non-classicality with respect to the coarse-graining parameter. While there is no universal way to quantify non-classicality, we do so using well understood notions in quantum optics such as the negativity of the Wigner function and the singular nature of the Gluaber-Sudharshan P distribution."


Boris Sokolov, Iiro Vilja, Sabrina Maniscalco (2017), "Quantum to classical transition induced by gravitational time dilation"; or arXiv:1702.02433v2

https://arxiv.org/abs/1702.02433

Abstract: "We study the loss of quantumness caused by time dilation  for a Schrodinger cat state, considering also the effect of a non-asymptotic observer. We give a holistic view of the quantum to classical transition by comparing the dynamics of several nonclassicality indicators, such as the Wigner function interference fringe, the negativity of the Wigner function, the nonclassical depth, the Vogel criterion and the Klyshko criterion. Our results show that only two of these indicators depend critically on the size of the cat, namely on how macroscopic the superposition is. Finally we compare the gravitation-induced decoherence times to the typical decoherence times due to classical noise originating from the unavoidable statistical fluctuations in the characteristic parameters of the system. We show that the experimental observation of decoherence due to time dilation imposes severe limitations on the allowed levels of classical noise in the experiments."


All of such references can be combined with information science to better understand what systemic challenges AI will be facing as it approaches the technological singularity circa 2045.

Edit: The attached image is related to the importance of free will in HIOTTOE.

[AbruptSLR]

The following quote is from Reply #6 in the "Climate Destabilization: Tragedy of the Markets or Imperial Defence ?" thread, in Policy and solutions folder:

Quote: "Governments have repeatedly demonstrated that they are willing to use warfare to promote national self-interest, and it goes without saying that governments are currently, and will continue, using climate change to promote national interest.  However, Carl von Clausewitz (using the thesis-antithesis-synthesis triad) makes it clear (see the following extract from Wikipedia) that while governments start wars to try to get what they want (normally based on violent emotions), the "fog of war" (or chance) forces on-the-fly changes to the original state policy based on genius (or "military genius").

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_von_Clausewitz

Extract: "In On War, Clausewitz sees all wars as the sum of decisions, actions, and reactions in an uncertain and dangerous context, and also as a socio-political phenomenon. He also stressed the complex nature of war, which encompasses both the socio-political and the operational and stresses the primacy of state policy.
…
The first is his dialectical thesis: "War is thus an act of force to compel our enemy to do our will." The second, often treated as Clausewitz's 'bottom line,' is in fact merely his dialectical antithesis: "War is merely the continuation of policy by other means." The synthesis of his dialectical examination of the nature of war is his famous "trinity," saying that war is "a fascinating trinity—composed of primordial violence, hatred, and enmity, which are to be regarded as a blind natural force; the play of chance and probability, within which the creative spirit is free to roam; and its element of subordination, as an instrument of policy, which makes it subject to pure reason."  Thus the best shorthand for Clausewitz's trinity should be something like "violent emotion/chance/rational calculation."
…
Clausewitz acknowledges that friction creates enormous difficulties for the realization of any plan, and the fog of war hinders commanders from knowing what is happening.  It is precisely in the context of this challenge that he develops the concept of military genius, whose capabilities are seen above all in the execution of operations."

Thus your discussion of US imperialism's use of climate change as a weapon needs to be viewed in terms of the "fog of war" created by the national desires and actions of the other major player's on the world stage including Russia and China (see links below for examples of their jockeying for power)


http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2015/03/16/world/europe/ap-eu-russia-war-games.html?_r=0


http://time.com/3745557/china-arms-exports-third-usa-russia-germany/

However, while the major national players may view the use of geo-engineering as the equivalent of "military genius" to use rational calculations to control the consequences of their manipulations of climate change to achieve their goals (based on violent emotions); I postulate that due to its fat-tailed PDF (or more likely a dragon tailed PDF) climate change is different than normal warfare, and thus it is likely that all national interests (USA, Russia, China, EU etc) will be diminished after their plan to use geo-engineering backfires for reasons including:

1.  The loss of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, WAIS, is now inevitable and the use of solar radiation management, SRM, can only slow the rate at which sea level will rise by several meters.
2. The incursion of warm ocean waters into the Arctic Ocean Basin will accelerate in the next couple of decades; which will rapidly degrade the submerged permafrost and associated methane hydrates, regardless of whether SRM can restore the Arctic Sea Ice extent, or not.
3. The use of SRM will very likely lead to more warfare which will lead to more radiative forcing and the risk that the SRM will be abruptly discontinued, which would create a period of extreme weather."

In regards to my current series of posts in this "Systemic Isolation" thread, I note that while Clausewitz takes Napoleon as a "military genius" that presents a viable resolution to the "wick problem" and chaos of warfare; nevertheless, the power that Napoleon relied upon to create a synthesis/resolution that ended-up with the populist Napoleon as a dictator (like many other populist).  However, I believe that a Buddha is also a "genius" that offers a more peaceful resolution/synthesis to "wick/chaotic" systemic problems end-up with a group oriented solution.  Thus even if we do not get lucky enough to experience another Buddha (Metteyya); it may be possible to train AI bots (or AI enhanced cyborgs) to act something like Jedi Knights (see images), in a post-collapse society.

[AbruptSLR]

The following linked Wikipedia article is entitled: "Bodhipakkhiyādhammā", and it discusses the seven sets of qualities associated with awakening (see the first image) leading to enlightenment.  The second image presents a table that identifies five qualities mentioned multiple times with the seven sets of qualities (see also Reply #59).  These five qualities; Saddha (faith), Viriya (energy), sati (mindfulness), Samadhi (concentration), Panna ( intuitive wisdom).  Within these five qualities one begins with "Saddha" as it is called the seed from which is born the tree that bears the fruit of deliverance.  However, there is no blind faith on the path to enlightenment, and the kind of faith encouraged in the Pali cannon is called Akaravati Saddha (reasoned-faith), and can be described as being based on coming and seeing (ehipasiko); which is the same as in the scientific method.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodhipakkhiy%C4%81dhamm%C4%81

Extract: "In Buddhism, bodhipakkhiyā dhammā (Pali; variant spellings include bodhipakkhikā dhammā and bodhapakkhiyā dhammā; Skt.: bodhipakṣa dharma) are qualities (dhammā) conducive or related to (pakkhiya) awakening (bodhi).
…
In the Visuddhimagga, Buddhaghosa enumerates the seven sets of bodhipakkhiya dhammas along with a relevant Suttapiṭaka discourse (Vism. XXII.33), describes each set (Vism. XXII.34-38), and describes their existence in the consciousness of an arahant (Vism. XXII.39-40). In addition, Buddhaghosa factors the 37 qualities in a manner so as to describe fourteen non-redundant qualities (Vism. XXII.40-43); thus, for instance, while nine qualities (zeal, consciousness, joy, tranquility, equanimity, intention, speech, action, livelihood) are mentioned only once in the full list of 37 qualities, the other five qualities are mentioned multiple times. Table 1 below identifies the five qualities spanning multiple bodhipakkhiya-dhamma sets."

I raise these points to give context to the three types of Maha (Great)-Bodhisatta, which are Saddha (faith), Viriya (energy),and Panna ( intuitive wisdom) as discussed most recently in Replies #293 & 294; and which in my opinion represent the three best paths for reducing suffering (increasing happiness), particularly in a post-collapse society.  Further, I note that the awakenings along these pathways to reduced suffering (increased happiness) represent transitions from one's life-bubble (event horizon) to another life-bubble; and that these transitions are related to the dualities and to the correspondence principle discussed in Replies #302 & 303.

[AbruptSLR]

wili has noted that he enjoys my HIOTTOE-type interweaving of Eastern (Pali Cannon), and Western (Holographic Theory), information science, but that it frequently confuses him.  In the hope of clarifying (and at the risk of adding more confusion to) some of the points in my last series of posts about the process (Bodhipakkhiyādhammā) of transcending 'bubbles' associated with systemic isolation, I offer the following brief discussion:

In HIOTTOE (Holographic cybernetic organizational [holoborg] interpretation of the theory of everything) full enlightenment (Nibbana) corresponds roughly with direct acknowledgement of the entire timelessly evolved freewill information network (the first image shows a Lila model of part of this network while the second image shows a quantum theory model of part of this network, while the third image shows a String Theory model of part of this network), which cannot be described using commonplace terms and concepts (whether by terms/concepts in the Pali cannon or by math in the Holographic Theory).  In this sense, all types of fully enlightened bodhisattas (see Replies #119 & 294) dwell equal (& egoless) within the Nibbanic plane; however, when viewed with unenlightened eyes (i.e. by eyes that deny portions of the full timelessly evolved freewill information network) these different types of bodhisattas are defined by the different paths (e.g. big-boat vs small boat; or faith-predominant vs wisdom-predominant vs energy-predominant) they take to Nibbana.

Next, I remind the reader (see Reply #86) that Gaussian adaptation within an information network leads to the egotistical illusion of choice which is fundamentally different than the egoless free-will dimples within a HIOTTOE free-will information network.  In this sense, a Faith-type Great Bodhisatta does not rely on dogma for awakening, but rather predominantly on evidence-base deductive logic within the scientific method; while a Wisdom-type Great Bodhisatta does not rely on some inherent genius for awakening, but rather predominantly on evidence-based Bayesian logic within the scientific method; while an Energy-type of Great Bodhisatta does not rely on some form of mystical power (mojo) for awakening, but rather on effort to reduce the entropy along its pathway to enlightenment within the free-will information network (just as an enriched environment can help accelerate evolution based on natural selection).

Next, I quote from Reply #88 (see also the fourth image related to Shannon Entropy):
"We should not lose sight of the fact that we are talking about information theory (where Vipassana is information theory) and communication networks where signal transmission through the network is what is known/observed; which is why entropy, H, is defined (see Reply #86) in terms of the system (subject to evolution from Gaussian adaptation) wide (for Avogadro's number of expressed free will points) aggregation of efficiency.  Where efficiency, E, is information divided by the work/time needed to achieve an event (observation/measurement) with a probability P of occurrence, and –log (P) is the unit-less measure of information transmitted.  Thus E = −P log(P), and H = the summation of E for a system subject to evolution.

Ray Kurzweil understands information theory, which is why in "THE AGE of SPIRITUAL MACHINES" (see Reply #87) he states: "The opposite of disorder–which I called “order” in the above Law of Accelerating Returns–is even trickier."

See also:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaussian_adaptation

Lastly, I note that as we accelerate within the 4th Industrial Revolution towards both the technological singularity and concurrently towards socio-economic collapse; the best gifts that we can leave for post-collapse generations are systemic gifts (e.g. well developed AI software, & more equable socio-economic systems) that reduce systemic isolation via institutions that strengthen evidenced-based science (both deductive [via saddha] and Bayesian [via panna] ) and that reduce systemic holographic entropy [via viriya].

Edit1: At the risk of stating the obvious, I note that amoral interests (such as denialists of evidence-based science, etc.) can flip these guidelines for reducing the suffering of the group say by: (a) distorting deductive logic by manipulating statistics; (b) biasing Bayesian logic using self-serving priori; and (c) increase systemic entropy by using survival of the fittest logic instead of natural selection.

Edit2: The comment in my Edit1 indicates the importance of the First Noble Truth that suffering (dukkha) exists in this mundane world; which provides motivation (i.e. a moral base) to travel the path to the cessation of dukkha.

[AbruptSLR]

The linked article is entitled: "Old economics is based on false ‘laws of physics’ – new economics can save us".  Hopefully, economics can be revised to better follow the laws of natural selection before mankind overshoots on its survival.

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2017/apr/06/kate-raworth-doughnut-economics-new-economics

Extract: "It is time to ditch the belief that economies obey rigid mechanical rules, which has widened inequality and polluted our planet. Economics is evolving.
…
Things are not going well in the world’s richest economies. Most OECD countries are facing their highest levels of income inequality in 30 years, while generating ecological footprints of a size that would require four, five or six planet Earths if every country were to follow suit. These economies have, in essence, become divisive and degenerative by default. Mainstream economic theory long promised that the solution starts with growth – but why does that theory seem so ill-equipped to deal with the social and ecological fallout of its own prescriptions? The answer can be traced back to a severe case of physics envy.
…
When it comes to pollution, it has to get worse before it can get better and – guess what – more growth will make it better. Like a well-trained child, growth will apparently clean up after itself.
…
So if the economy is not best thought of as a mechanism that returns to equilibrium and follows fixed laws of motion, how should we think of it? Like the living world: it’s complex, dynamic and ever-evolving. And for economists, that means it’s time for a metaphorical career change: from engineer to gardener.
…
Regenerative economic design ensures that instead of using up Earth’s resources, we use them again and again and again. We learn to work with, not against, the cyclical processes of life, including those for carbon, water and nutrients. Thanks to innovations in the circular economy and cradle-to-cradle design we can start turning last century’s degenerative economy into this century’s regenerative one.

Distributive economic design, in turn, ensures that value created is spread far more equitably among those who helped to generate it. Think employee-owned companies – such as the John Lewis Partnership and Unipart – that reward committed employees rather than short-term shareholders. Think community-owned renewable-energy systems that generate electricity along with income for community purpose. Think creative commons licensing that enables valuable innovations, like those of the Open Building Institute, to be shared, improved and used without end. Thanks to the rise of digital networks, there’s more opportunity than ever to turn last century’s divisive economy into this century’s distributive one.

So how can economic policymakers be more like gardeners in their approach? They should think of policy as an adapting portfolio of experiments, says Eric Beinhocker, a leading thinker in the field of evolutionary economics. We should mimic nature’s process of natural selection, which can be summed up as diversify-select-amplify: set up small-scale policy experiments to test out a variety of interventions, put a stop to the ones that don’t work and scale-up those that do. Nobel-prize-winning political scientist Elinor Ostrom agreed. “We have never had to deal with problems of the scale facing today’s globally interconnected society,” she wrote. “No one knows for sure what will work, so it is important to build a system that can evolve and adapt rapidly.”

[AbruptSLR]

Per the Pali Cannon, only human (or better) organisms can become enlightened, likely because the path to enlightenment leads through mental purification (mindfulness), which requires sufficient mental ability to be aware of more than one mental state/content and the ability to decide which of the different states/contents to act upon.  Thus, if one were to compare an individual human organism, as a system, to the global socio-economic-political system; in order to work towards achieving more sustainable post-collapse socio-economic-political systems/institutions, one (by analogy with the path to individual enlightenment) would focus on refining leadership in the same way that the mental purification proceeds all on the path to enlightenment.  Thus to paraphrase an old truism: "power corrupts leadership and absolute power corrupts leadership absolutely".  In this sense we need to hold world leaders accountable to evidence-based feedback from anthropogenically impacted Earth Systems (including physical systems, biological systems and social-economic-political-institutional systems); in order to promote both humility and awareness among the world leaders.

[AbruptSLR]

The linked article is entitled: "Electric DNA, Circular RNA, and Other Epigenetic Wonders".  This article emphasizes the importance of considering the full range of information activity in a complex evolved (i.e. naturally selected) information networks such as the DNA, RNA protein, electric signal information network; which includes mechanisms as “programmed specificity” and “extreme mutual dependency”; which are the hallmarks of the HIOTTOE evolved (naturally selected) free-will information network and/or a holographic universe"

https://www.evolutionnews.org/2017/04/electric-dna-circular-rna-and-other-epigenetic-wonders/


Extract: "Upon completion of the Human Genome Project, scientists were baffled at the unexpectedly low number of genes. How could so few protein-coding genes (about 20,000) build a human being? It turned out that genes are only one part of the action. The old Central Dogma that viewed DNA as the master molecule, RNA as the messenger boy, and protein as the end product is long gone. Now we are beginning to see that there are three “-omes” that interact in complex ways with other molecules, including lipids and sugars. Everywhere they turn, scientists are seeing molecular wizardry at work. Here are just a few recent examples.
…
Here’s another way that DNA carries information that is rather shocking: it conducts electricity. Science Magazine describes “DNA charge transport” as an unexpected signaling system between the code and its reading machines.
…
Some RNAs fold into stable loops. We have them in our brains. What do they do? When discovered, they were considered non-coding. Now, however, scientists at Hebrew University have found that they can indeed code for proteins. The paper in Molecular Cell, “Translation of CircRNAs,” opens up a new window of functional possibilities for these oddball transcripts.
…
ID advocates are certain to catch the phrases “programmed specificity” and “extreme mutual dependency” in support of their view, while chuckling at the Darwinists’ quandary about “how such substrate specificities evolved.” Their suggested solution only appears to dig a deeper hole. They never quite get around to telling readers how “extreme mutual dependability” came up with “secondary functions” by sheer dumb luck, such that the result only gives an appearance of “programmed specificity.” ID, on the other hand, provides a common-sense answer."

See also:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/curiouser-and-curiouser-octopuss-evolution-is-even-stranger-than-thought/

[sidd]

Out of curiosity, does ID stand for "Intelligent Design" ?

[DrTskoul]

Out of curiosity, does ID stand for "Intelligent Design" ?

Yip...

For me it stands for Intelligence Dysfunction...

[AbruptSLR]

Out of curiosity, does ID stand for "Intelligent Design" ?

As far as I know, that is what the author meant (however, to be clear HIOTTOE does not recognize intelligence design, but does recognize the impact of natural selection).

Edit: I would like to acknowledge that I was 'catfished' when I provided the link to the article in Reply #309, as that article was originated by the Discovery Institute, which supports ID (intelligent design), see the following link that confirms this fact:

http://www.discovery.org/id/

Nevertheless, this example of me being 'catfished' raises the fact that denialists are now using scientism to successfully infiltrate numerous oversight/regulatory information systems, for example:
(1) Denialists have worked with 'Big Pharm' to cite just enough evidence of opioids' value in fighting psychic damage from acute pain to get doctors to continue to prescribe opioids for chronic pain (which opioids do not prevent) to the extent that we now have a opioid crisis with 7 million American receive disability pay to support their opioid addiction; which likely contributed to Trump's election success.
(2) Denialists have worked with the Fossil Fuel Industry to cite sufficient evidence about doubts about climate change to get Trump elected (which put Scott Pruitt in charge of the EPA), and to put Lamar Smith in charge of the House Science Committee.
(3) Denialists have worked with the Tobacco Industry to cite sufficient evidence to give regulators sufficient cover to keep tobacco on the market.

[AbruptSLR]

My mea culpa in Reply #312 that I was 'catfished' by the Discovery Institute, illustrates that '-isms' can creep their way into the misrepresentation of science at any level from classical physics, to DNA research, to quantum research, to information science. 

In order to work towards the development of 'big boat' (in the Vipassana sense that an 'Energy' [i.e. low information entropy] rich environment that can contribute to the reduction of suffering) approaches toward improved socio-economic institutions/systems, one must recognize the role of 'natural selection' as a form of Maxwell's demon that can reduce entropy within information systems (noting that the Holographic Universe is a timeless information system), via the application of 'skillful' [evidence-based information guided] work.  Such 'skillful work' can then be applied within a Hegelian dialect dynamic framework to move towards the end of '-isms'; in the same sense that Vipassana can be applied to transcend suffering by first acknowledging that suffering characterizes the mundane world.

In this sense 'natural selection' (particularly within the timelessly evolved free-will information network that represents the knowable universe) is a key tool within the scientific method that underpins evidence based science; while 'survival of the fittest' [or 'othering' via systemic isolationism] is a key tool for denialists who seek to highjack science via scientism.  For example dentialist point to the code correcting mathematics embedded with String Theory formulae to support their belief of intelligent design (ID), while in HIOTTOE existence of code correcting mathematics is evidence of the process of 'natural selection' at work within a timeless evolved free-will information network (& I note that the same point can be made about code correcting mechanisms in the DNA-RNA-Protein information system).

[AbruptSLR]

In my recent series of posts, I have postulated that a 'big boat' approach could be used to improving the sustainability of our current socio-economic systems/institution, by changing such systems/institutions to better simulate 'natural selection' instead of 'survival of the fittest' processes.  To me the application of 'natural selection' processes to socio-economic systems/institutions would require 'skillful' applications of the atapi-sampajano-satima process and avoidance of 'unskillful' applications.  Where 'skillful' application would require the development of game-theory type rules governing the agents acting with the socio-economic systems/institutions so the agents are subjected to:

(a) Atapi/ardent effort can metaphorically symbolized by the challenge-response authentication role of Seraph [see the first image], the energetic/burning angelic messenger [or Maxell's information demon] between mankind and sampajano, in the Matrix movie.  In the natural selection analogy, atapi represents the acknowledgment of suffering [in the mundane world] in the moment [in accordance with the first noble truth]; while in the survival of the fittest analogy, faux-atapi represents the effort to avoid suffering by passing the suffering on to 'others' via systemic isolation.  While in the Hegelian dialectic double helix metaphor, atapi represents the tension holding the double strands of thesis and antithesis together.

(b) Sampajano/proper understanding-equanimity can be metaphorically symbolized in the Matrix movie by the two angelic wings represented by Neo and Trinity [see the second & third images, respectively], required to maintain balance in life.  In the natural selection analogy sampajano represents the wisdom of accepting change in a Bayesian sense of changing a priori into a posteriori; while in the survival of the fittest analogy, faux-sampajano represents the mental post-traumatic stress syndrome associated with 'othering'.  While in the Hegelian dialectic double helix metaphor, sampajano represents the synthesis resulting from the interaction of the thesis, and anthesis, strands.

(c) Satima/proper awareness can be metaphorically symbolized in the Matrix movie by the happiness resulting from accepting the free-will of others [see the fourth image of Sati], within a timeless evolved free-will information Matrix.  In the natural selection analogy satima represents the happiness (reduction of mundane suffering) of living aware of other's well-being (such a living empathetically for the common good); while in the survival of the fittest analogy, faux satima represents the addiction/aversion associated from profiting at others expense.  While in the Hegelian dialectic double helix metaphor, satima represents the elimination of '-isms', via the collapse of the double strands due to the lack of tension that causing another turn of the dialectic spiral.

With the coming of Artificial General Intelligence, AGI, during the 4th Industrial Revolution it will be critical to present the machine learning with systemic models of natural selection (atapi-sampajano-satima) rather than systemic models of survival of the fittest; which in the Matrix analogy ended in a Machine War.

Edit: E pluribus unum — Latin for "Out of many, one"

[AbruptSLR]

I note that in my original post in this thread I stated (see also the first attached image): "I made the following post in the "Arctic Sea Ice Humor" thread, where I tried to use "The Matrix" as a metaphor as a mental system that has trapped/isolated individuals into a materialistic/hedonistic way of thinking/being; rather than becoming "unplugged" from the system/matrix so that they could express their free will as Neo learns to do.  And in this thread I hope to engage in a multi-layer/level (technical/philosophical/political/psychological/scientific etc, e.g. see the link to Elon Musk's opinion that we do in fact inhabit a "computer" generated reality) discussion of how systemic thinking tends to cling to old values/thinking resulting in individual/group isolation from an ever changing reality, which results in suffering, rather than in living a life unburdened by bias & limitations.

Re-post:

"And many of them are so inert, so hopelessly dependent on the system that they will fight to protect it." Morpheus, The Matrix"

Also, I note that in Reply # 82 I state: "… Morpheus represents the God of dreams providing insights into how to move towards the Nibbanic plane …"

Just for fun I provide the first link to the article entitled: "Matrix Reboot: Everything We Need to See", about rumors of a Warner Bros - Matrix movie prequel about a young Morpheus (see the second attached image).

http://movieweb.com/matrix-movie-reboot-must-see/?page=2

Extract: "The current rumor about the new Matrix film's storyline is that it will follow the character of Morpheus. There's also a rumor that Michael B. Jordan (Creed) will be playing this character. Whatever happens with The Matrix prequel, reboot or whatever it is, this film can't simply be a retread of what we've already seen."

See also the linked Matrix movie fan trailer with Will Smith as Neo in the original Matrix trilogy:

http://movieweb.com/matrix-movie-fan-trailer-will-smith-neo/

Extract: "As for Matrix 4, writer Zak Penn took to social media shortly after the news was announced, making it clear that he is not rebooting The Matrix, although he wouldn't offer any specific details on whether this new movie was a prequel or sequel. There has also been talk that Warner Bros. is putting together a writer's room to develop more ideas for future Matrix projects, but that news, along with the potential casting of Michael B. Jordan as a young Morpheus, has not been confirmed. While we wait for more on this new project, take a look at this inventive fan trailer which shows what The Matrix may have looked like if Will Smith would have played Neo."

[AbruptSLR]

The linked article is entitled: “5 similar philosophies in The Matrix and Vipassana”.  Obviously, the author of this article is not aware that Lana and Lilly Wachowski specifically made the Matrix trilogy with life lessons from Zen Buddhism in mind; nevertheless, some of the comments offer some insights.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/5-similar-philosophies-matrix-vipassana-bhumika-singal

Extract: “I must admit the problem statement of vipassana and The Matrix is at the opposite end of the spectrum. The former urges to endeavor on an individual journey to free your soul from suffering of the world. The latter however endeavors to free the man from machines. However what boggled my mind was the similarity in solutions provided to either free your soul or save the world.”

[Ranman99]

There are interesting notes/comparisons in the triology. Goes a little further. The audio versions are the most fun.

http://www.wisefoolpress.com/audio/

[johnm33]

 For anyone wanting an insight into the siddhis skip to page 81 of this pdf http://www.eso-garden.com/specials/the_secret_life_of_nature.pdf
Or perhaps take a look here http://www.smphillips.mysite.com/pdfs/ESP_of_Quarks.pdf

[AbruptSLR]

The Charging Bull statue (representative of crony capitalism) reminds me of the self-serving egotistical nature of survival of the fittest type of thinking; while the Fearless Girl statue reminds me that natural selection type of thinking requires passing the torch down through multiple generations in order to select for group cooperation & sustainability.

[AbruptSLR]

When I find some time, I expect to make a few posts about how the prisoner's dilemma (i.e. game theory) relates to systemic isolation.  However, in the meantime, I provide the following quote from the linked Wikipedia article entitled: "Prisoner's dilemma", that indicates that in 'wicked problems' like climate change, uncertainty makes it much less likely that we will avoid climate catastrophe than for cases follow clear rules.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma

Extract: "In environmental studies, the PD is evident in crises such as global climate-change. It is argued all countries will benefit from a stable climate, but any single country is often hesitant to curb CO2 emissions. The immediate benefit to any one country from maintaining current behavior is wrongly perceived to be greater than the purported eventual benefit to that country if all countries' behavior was changed, therefore explaining the impasse concerning climate-change in 2007.

An important difference between climate-change politics and the prisoner's dilemma is uncertainty; the extent and pace at which pollution can change climate is not known. The dilemma faced by government is therefore different from the prisoner's dilemma in that the payoffs of cooperation are unknown. This difference suggests that states will cooperate much less than in a real iterated prisoner's dilemma, so that the probability of avoiding a possible climate catastrophe is much smaller than that suggested by a game-theoretical analysis of the situation using a real iterated prisoner's dilemma.

Osang and Nandy provide a theoretical explanation with proofs for a regulation-driven win-win situation along the lines of Michael Porter's hypothesis, in which government regulation of competing firms is substantial."

See also the linked article entitled: "Game theory suggests current climate negotiations won’t avert catastrophe"

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/game-theory-suggests-current-climate-negotiations-won%E2%80%99t-avert-catastrophe

[AbruptSLR]

I reiterate that in the HIOTTOE timelessly evolved (with a fractal nature as illustrated by the first image from the movie The Matrix) free-will information network, each of the free-will dimples can choose not to acknowledge the free-will of other extant free-will dimples in order to 'dwell' within an information bubble (within an information event horizon) network.  This choice to ignore the free-will of other dimples allows the dimple under consideration to egotistically 'experience' the illusion of preconditioned sensations that leads to 'othering' via cravings and aversions for the sensations.  Using a Game Theory metaphor of a Prisoner's Dilemma cited in my last post, the information bubble network can be considered a prison and 'othering' can create the positive and negative prisoner incentives, that lead to suffering within this mundane bubble world/universe, due to systemic isolation.

Also, I reiterate that in HIOTTOE that the iterative application of the process atapi (see the second image of Seraph burning with an internal fractal information fire) – sampajano – satima can successively lead to a 'prison break' from successive information bubbles leading to an end of suffering (due to an end of 'othering'/'-isms' & the associated end of systemic isolation) for the dimple under consideration.  This reality of this systemic truth is illustrated by the following extract from the linked article entitled: "Evidence Indicates That Universal Basic Income Improves Human Health", that considers the case of shock conditioning on caged animals as a metaphor for importance on one's mental health of having means/method to exercise one's free-will to reduce suffering.  Here two rats received the same amount of suffering from electric shocks but the rat who could exercise its free-will sustain little mental illness while the other rat who could not exercise its free-will sustained severe mental illness.  That same article goes on to argue that reducing the negative impacts of income inequality in our global economic system via the adoption of universal basic income; would similarly reduce group suffering by enabling the weaker group members to better exercise their free-wills.

With the technical singularity (including refined understanding of: quantum information science, Holographic Theory, QBism, Constructor Theory, Shape Dynamics, etc.) coming circa 2045, better understanding how recognizing the free-will of others is in making moral decisions within a Prisoner Dilemma framework can help to ensure that artificial general intelligence, AGI, will benefit future societies instead of threaten them.

https://futurism.com/evidence-indicates-that-universal-basic-income-improves-human-health/

Extract: "Seligman wanted to know if dogs could be classically conditioned to react to bells in the same way as if they’d just been shocked, so he put them in a crate with a floor that could be electrified, and shocked them each time he rang a bell. The dogs soon began to react to the bell as if they’d just been shocked. Next however, he put them in a special crate where they could leap to safety to avoid the shock, and this is where the surprise happened.

The dogs wouldn’t leap to safety. It turns out they’d learned from the prior part of the experiment that it didn’t matter what they did. The shock would come anyway. They had learned helplessness. Seligman then tried the experiment with dogs who had not been shocked and they leaped to safety just as expected. But the dogs who had learned helplessness, they just sadly laid down and whimpered.

Fast forward to 1971 where a scientist named Jay Weiss explored this further with rats in cages. He put three rats into three different cages with electrodes attached to their tails and a wheel for each to turn. One rat was the lucky rat. No shocks were involved. Another would get shocks that could be stopped by turning its wheel. The third was the unlucky one. It would get shocked at the same time as the second rat, but it could do nothing about it. The third rat would only stop getting shocked when the second rat turned its wheel. Can you guess what happened?
Even though the two rats that were shocked got shocked at the same time and for the same duration of time, their outcomes were very different. The rat who had the power to stop the pain was just a bit worse off than the rat who experienced no pain at all. However, the rat who had no control whatsoever, stuck with a lever that did nothing, became heavily ulcerated. Like the dog, it too had learned helplessness. The cost of this lesson was its health."

[AbruptSLR]

The linked article entitled: “AI Can Beat Us at Poker—Now Let’s See If It Can Work with Us”, discusses how AI research involving games like the Prisoner's Dilemma can be used to investigate how to increase human cooperation:

http://www.cbs.com/shows/big_bang_theory/video/QZ3PzCic8hVPupmysSDqIH8fU_nuzkdD/the-big-bang-theory-the-separation-agitation/

Extract: “The algorithm that achieved that calculates some promising strategies for the game being played in advance, before learning which to use based on the actions of its co-player. It isn’t likely to become the foundation of future human-robot relations, but is intended to show how experiments can test cooperation, and inspire further research into the idea, says Rahwan.”

[johnm33]

"https://futurism.com/evidence-indicates-that-universal-basic-income-improves-human-health/"
This is such a no brainer, but I guess not doing it creates a massive market for feelgood pills, not to mention it's potential impact on the 'war on drugs' industry.

[AbruptSLR]

"https://futurism.com/evidence-indicates-that-universal-basic-income-improves-human-health/"
This is such a no brainer, but I guess not doing it creates a massive market for feelgood pills, not to mention it's potential impact on the 'war on drugs' industry.

John,

I agree that universal basic income and similar measures like universal health care, microloans, etc. are no-brainers; and I agree that conflicts of interests make them unlikely to be implemented in a significant manner (worldwide); until well after the coming collapse.

Best,
ASLR

[johnm33]

"John,

I agree that universal basic income and similar measures like universal health care, microloans, etc. are no-brainers; and I agree that conflicts of interests make them unlikely to be implemented in a significant manner (worldwide); until well after the coming collapse.

Best,
ASLR"
Thanks, in so many of your posts, in this topic, i reach an almost diametrically opposed conclusion to the one you draw, provoking thought...
On universal income i'd prefer to go further and use it as the method for creating money. Apart from cash almost all money is created as debt, that is when you take out a loan your signature creates a legal obligation, a 'security' against which the bank creates a credit in your account. That money never existed before and even now although it's deposited in your account technically/legally you are loaning it to the bank, even if you purchase something that 'money' is merely transferred to another account and remains in the possesion of a bank. The more debt the banks can create a neccesity for, the more 'money' they have in their system with which they can manipulate markets, politics and society. I see no sign of this influence being benign, thus the power to create 'money' should be taken under democratic control, and there's no way more democratic than to look at the amount of money a society needs to operate, then to facilitate an access to 'debt' divided equally among all adult citizens, over a period of time, to eventually match that amount. Just to emphasise the point, when you take out a loan you create that much 'money' for the banks, they also own the promissary note, legally enforcable that you signed, and usually a lien over whatever you used the 'money' to purchase. For this incredible privilege the banks merely keep a record of who owes what, the rest of their time is spent in manipulating 'society' to better serve them. Society would be very different if people owed their debt to the commonwealth, and served that rather than being enthralled by the banks.
http://www.usdebtclock.org/
http://www.nationaldebtclocks.org/debtclock/unitedkingdom
I'm not sure either of these include unfunded liabilities in a comprehensive manner.
john

[AbruptSLR]

Thanks, in so many of your posts, in this topic, i reach an almost diametrically opposed conclusion to the one you draw, provoking thought...

John,

I imagine that before the coming socio-economic collapse we will make some progress in the direction that you indicate; however, the linked article entitled: "The New World Order: Failing States and Collapsing Systems", indicates that our systemic global inability to face the various truths of our rapidly changing world condition is accelerating the formation of failed states (e. g.: Syria, Nigeria, etc.) and collapsing global socio-economic systems (e. g.: the spread of alt-right populism with a focus on intensifying conflicts).  This inability to face hard truths is an example of human mental illness (e. g.: addictions and aversions).  Therefore, we many not get to the point where the USA (let alone the world) institutes universal basic income, before the collapse.

https://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2017/04/14/Failing-States-Collapsing-Systems/

Extract: "When oil prices were low, human economies gobbled oil and expanded like clownish balloons, but whenever prices rose and oil demand slackened, the economy shrank.
But the see-saw has ended and the economy is now having trouble digesting a new diet: unconventional fuels and in some cases, renewables, all delivering diminished returns and funded by easy credit and wild debt.

As Ahmed notes, global oil and gas production once offered God-like energy returns of 100 to one. For every barrel spent finding and extracting oil, society secured a hefty surplus or what the ecologist Charles Hall famously described as “EROI”: energy return on investment. Unprecedented net returns fueled the unnatural scale of economic growth for 100 years.
But those bountiful energy returns are now falling off a cliff. Today, net energy returns average around 15 to one. Once returns drops below 10 per barrel of energy expended, fossil fuels can’t generate enough surpluses to pay for the arts, government and society as we know it, let alone a transition to renewable energy.

As the quality of fuels decline, the global economy, a highly engineered tree fertilized by cheap oil, has registered the change as “economic stagnation” and stopped growing. 
…
This energy descent is taking place just as the globe’s fossil fuel economy has transgressed several biophysical limits to growth, including climate change, the decimation of wild creatures and the alteration of the world’s nitrogen cycles from fertilizer abuse.
Climate change is now undoing economies and shifting populations. Heat waves and drought propelled by disruptive carbon emissions could put a third of the world’s population at risk of starving by 2050. The more we disrupt earth systems, warns Ahmed, the more we destabilize human systems.
…
So Trump and anti-Muslim rhetoric is what happens when you ignore a qualitative change in energy resources and a decline in the Earth’s resources.
Meanwhile the mainstream media prefers to focus on chaos and terrorism, and ignore the many-headed hydra quietly engineering these spectacles.
“Human systems — social, political, geopolitical, cultural, and so on — are becoming destabilized in the context of escalating Earth System Disruption driven by dependence on fossil fuels,” writes Ahmed."

Best,
ASLR

[AbruptSLR]

The linked article indicates that one path out of our climate change problem is to recognize its roots in a human behavior problem; and to find, or develop, sustainability leaders that can inspire collective action (i.e. and not encourage systemic isolation):

Elise Amel, Christie Manning, Britain Scott & Susan Koger (21 Apr 2017), "Beyond the roots of human inaction: Fostering collective effort toward ecosystem conservation", Science, Vol. 356, Issue 6335, pp. 275-279, DOI: 10.1126/science.aal1931

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/356/6335/275

Abstract: "The term “environmental problem” exposes a fundamental misconception: Disruptions of Earth’s ecosystems are at their root a human behavior problem. Psychology is a potent tool for understanding the external and internal drivers of human behavior that lead to unsustainable living. Psychologists already contribute to individual-level behavior-change campaigns in the service of sustainability, but attention is turning toward understanding and facilitating the role of individuals in collective and collaborative actions that will modify the environmentally damaging systems in which humans are embedded. Especially crucial in moving toward long-term human and environmental well-being are transformational individuals who step outside of the norm, embrace ecological principles, and inspire collective action. Particularly in developed countries, fostering legions of sustainability leaders rests upon a fundamental renewal of humans’ connection to the natural world."

[AbruptSLR]

The linked article is entitled: "How Western Civilization Could Collapse".  It discusses how the appetite of the economic elites to hoard resources, not only damages the environment, but also stratifies our socio-economic fabric; both of which appear to be on track to lead to a collapse of Western Civilization in the 2050-2060 timeframe.  As this timeframe comes after the 2045 date for Ray Kurzweil's 'Technological Singularity', I attach an image from The Matrix of what the Machine City looks like after the Machine Wars.

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170418-how-western-civilisation-could-collapse

Extract: "Safa Motesharrei, a systems scientist at the University of Maryland, uses computer models to gain a deeper understanding of the mechanisms that can lead to local or global sustainability or collapse. According to findings that Motesharrei and his colleagues published in 2014, there are two factors that matter: ecological strain and economic stratification. The ecological category is the more widely understood and recognised path to potential doom, especially in terms of depletion of natural resources such as groundwater, soil, fisheries and forests – all of which could be worsened by climate change.

That economic stratification may lead to collapse on its own, on the other hand, came as more of a surprise to Motesharrei and his colleagues. Under this scenario, elites push society toward instability and eventual collapse by hoarding huge quantities of wealth and resources, and leaving little or none for commoners who vastly outnumber them yet support them with labour. Eventually, the working population crashes because the portion of wealth allocated to them is not enough, followed by collapse of the elites due to the absence of labour.
…
“The world will not rise to the occasion of solving the climate problem during this century, simply because it is more expensive in the short term to solve the problem than it is to just keep acting as usual,” says Jorgen Randers, a professor emeritus of climate strategy at the BI Norwegian Business School, and author of 2052: A Global Forecast for the Next Forty Years. “The climate problem will get worse and worse and worse because we won’t be able to live up to what we’ve promised to do in the Paris Agreement and elsewhere.”
…
“By 2050, the US and UK will have evolved into two-class societies where a small elite lives a good life and there is declining well-being for the majority,” Randers says. “What will collapse is equity.”
…
Some of these forecasts and early warning signs should sound familiar, precisely because they are already underway. While Homer-Dixon is not surprised at the world’s recent turn of events – he predicted some of them in his 2006 book – he didn’t expect these developments to occur before the mid-2020s."

[AbruptSLR]

So far in my posts, I have related HIOTTOE to: (1) Holographic theory [& other theoretical physics paradigms]; (2) AI & Zen Buddhist dynamics via the Matrix Trilogy; (3) Information Science & dialectic analysis; and (4) the Pali Cannon via the suttas.  However, as HIOTTOE primarily deals with information network theory, it may be more instructive to discuss it in terms of the Pali Cannon's Abhidamma (or Adhidharma in Sanskrit); which is teachings of Buddha Gotoma in more systemic terms.

As such a discussion may well confuse some readers, as a starting point (leading to future discusses on AI & the 'Technological Singularity') I provide the linked Wikipedia article entitled "Abhidharma", together with some selected extracts:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abhidharma

Extract: "Abhidharma (Sanskrit) or Abhidhamma (Pali) are ancient (3rd century BCE and later) Buddhist texts which contain detailed scholastic reworkings of doctrinal material appearing in the Buddhist sutras, according to schematic classifications. The Abhidhamma works do not contain systematic philosophical treatises, but summaries or abstract and systematic lists.
…
Compared to the colloquial sutras, Abhidharma texts are much more technical, analytic and systematic in content and style. The Theravadin and Sarvastivadin Abhidharmikas generally considered the Abhidharma to be the pure and literal (nippariyaya) description of ultimate truth (paramattha sacca) and an expression of unsullied wisdom (prajna), while the sutras were considered 'conventional' (sammuti) and figurative (pariyaya) teachings, given by the Buddha to specific people, at specific times, depending on specific worldly circumstances. They held that Abhidharma was taught by the Buddha to his most eminent disciples, and that therefore this justified the inclusion of Abhidharma texts into their scriptural canon.
…
In the commentaries of Theravada Buddhism it was held that the Abhidhamma was not a later addition to the tradition, but rather represented in the fourth week of Gautama Buddha's enlightenment.
…
For the Abhidharmikas, truth was twofold and there are two ways of looking at reality. One way is the way of everyday experience and of normal worldly persons. This is the category of the nominal and the conceptual (paññatti), and is termed the conventional truth (saṃvṛti-satya). However, the way of the Abhidharma, and hence the way of enlightened persons like the Buddha, who have developed the true insight (vipassana), sees reality as the constant stream of collections of dharmas, and this way of seeing the world is ultimate truth (paramārtha-satya).
…
The ultimate goal of the Abhidharma is Nirvana and hence the Abhidharmikas systematized dharmas into those which are skillful (kusala), purify the mind and lead to liberation, and those which are unskillful and do not. The Abhidharma then has a soteriological purpose, first and foremost and its goal is to support Buddhist practice and meditation. By carefully watching the coming and going of dhammas, and being able to identify which ones are wholesome and to be cultivated, and which ones are unwholesome and to be abandoned, the Buddhist meditator makes use of the Abhidharma as a schema to liberate his mind and realize that all experiences are impermanent, not-self, unsatisfactory and therefore not to be clung to.
…
In the Visuddhimagga, the Theravada scholar Buddhaghosa characterizes the nature of conventional reality thus: "when they are seen after resolving them by means of knowledge into these elements, they disintegrate like froth subjected to compression by the hand. They are mere states (dhamma) occurring due to conditions and void. In this way the characteristic of not-self becomes more evident".

[AbruptSLR]

While the link to an open source pdf of the book: "Abhidhammattha Sangaha a Comprehensive Manual of Abhidhamma, Pali Text, Translation & Explanatory Guide", presents a Theravada perspective on the Abhidamma Pitaka; nevertheless, Dhamma is universal and non-sectarian (indicating that there is no requirement to abandon any previously held beliefs while exploring this path).

The following extract and the two attached images illustrate that the Abhidhamma describes primarily heterarchical structures (matrices) to help make sense of "… the four ultimate realities (paramattha): consciousness, mental factors, material phenomena, and Nibbana (citta, cetaskia, rupa, nibbana), the first three comprising conditioned reality and the last the unconditioned element."  The third image shows the heterarchical organization of the human main stem nervous system that clearly illustrates the mind-body relationship between citta/cetaskia and rupa.  The fourth attached image (from the movie The Matrix) illustrates how the conditioned realities of citta, cetaskia and rupa trap individuals within a prison that keeps them from Nibbana.

http://www.saraniya.com/books/meditation/Bhikkhu_Bodhi-Comprehensive_Manual_of_Abhidhamma.pdf

Extract: "And the third collection is the Abhidhamma Pitaka, the "basket" of the Buddha's "higher" or "special" doctrine.
…
Apart from its strict adherence to the philosophical method of exposition, the Abhidhamma makes a number of other noteworthy contributions integral to its task of systemization.  One is the employment, in the main books of the Abhidhamma Pitaka, of a matrika – a matrix or schedule of categories – as the blueprint of the entire edifice.  This matrix, which comes at the very beginning of the Dhammasangani as a preface to the Abhidhamma Pitaka proper, consists of 122 modes of classification special to the Abhidhamma method.  Of these, twenty-two are triads (tika), sets of three terms into which the fundamental dhammas are to be distributed; the remaining hundred are dyads (duka), sets of two terms used as a basis for classification.  The matrix serves as a kind of grid for sorting out the complex manifold of experience in accordance with principles determined by the purposes of the Dhamma.
…
This is the division of actuality into the four ultimate realities (paramattha): consciousness, mental factors, material phenomena, and Nibbana (citta, cetaskia, rupa, nibbana), the first three comprising conditioned reality and the last the unconditioned element.

The last novel feature of the Abhidhamma method to be noted here – contributed by the final book of the Pitaka, the Patthana – is a set of twenty-four conditional relations laid down for the purpose of showing how the ultimate realities are welded into orderly processes.  This scheme of conditions supplies the necessary complement of the analytical approach that dominates the earlier books of the Abhidhamma.  The method of analysis proceeds by dissecting apparent wholes into their component parts, thereby exposing their voidness of any indivisible core that might quality as self or substance.  The synthetic method plots the conditional relations of the bare phenomena obtained by analysis to show that they are not isolated self-contained units but nodes in a vast multi-layered web of inter-related, inter-dependent events.  Taken in conjunction, the analytical method of the earlier treatises of the Abhidhamma Pitaka and the synthetic method of the Patthana establish the essential unity of the twin philosophical principles of Buddhism, non-self or egolessness (anatta) and dependent arising or conditionality (paticca samuppada).  Thus the foundation of the Abhidhamma methodology remains in perfect harmony with the insights that lie at the heart of the entire Dhamma.
…
The purpose of the Patthana is to apply its scheme of twenty-four conditional relations to all the phenomena incorporated in the Abhidhamma matrix."

[AbruptSLR]

The first attached image illustrates that deep neural networks were developed to mimic the heterarchical structure of the brain, and that deep neural networks are one of the most significant drivers of machine learning which is underpinning the recent advances in AI.  However, deep neural networks work best on tasks where a large data base exists for training, which currently limits AI applications in dynamic cases. 

The old adage that all models are wrong but some models are useful, can be quantified by measuring such metrics as the Kullback–Leibler (KL) divergence illustrated in the second image (where one pdf represents objective reality and the other is a pdf from a model and the divergence is a metric of the model's departure from reality).  The third image shows a more dynamic method to characterize this divergence using the Wasserstein Generative Adversarial Networks (WGAN) process (see the linked reference & associated blog articles).

Martin Arjovsky, Soumith Chintala, and Leon Bottou (March 2017), "Wasserstein GAN"

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1701.07875.pdf
https://arxiv.org/abs/1701.07875

&

https://datawarrior.wordpress.com/2017/03/30/on-wasserstein-gan/

&

https://vincentherrmann.github.io/blog/wasserstein/

&

http://www.alexirpan.com/2017/02/22/wasserstein-gan.html

With regards to the Abhidhamma, such machine learning primarily parallels the structuring of cetaskia (mental factors); while as we approach the Technological Singularity AI will increasingly need to model citta (consciousness); which I believe will require the use of Lorentz Attractors (see the fourth image).

[AbruptSLR]

Further to Replies #329 to 331: the linked article is entitled: "Scientists Discover Possible First Proof of Parallel Universes", which supports the HIOTTOE position that we dwell in a multiverse (multiple dhmmas) that collectively form a Holographic Universe (Dhamma), or a timelessly evolved free-will information network.

http://bigthink.com/paul-ratner/scientists-find-what-could-be-the-first-proof-of-parallel-universes

Extract: "A new study about one of the most inexplicable places in the cosmos may offer the first proof that we are living in a multiverse."

See also the associated pdf of the linked reference:

Mackenzie et. al. (2017), "Evidence against a supervoid causing the CMB Cold Spot", arXiv:1704.03814v1

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1704.03814.pdf

[AbruptSLR]

Per the linked reference hopefully scientists will keep working to apply the WGAN approach (see Reply #331) to modeling climate change & strange attractors:


Yoann Robin , Pascal Yiou and Philippe Naveau (2017), “Detecting Changes in Forced Climate Attractors with Wasserstein Distance”, Nonlin. Processes Geophys. Discuss., doi:10.5194/npg-2017-5


http://www.nonlin-processes-geophys-discuss.net/npg-2017-5/npg-2017-5.pdf'



Abstract. The climate system can been described by a dynamical system and its associated attractor. The dynamics of this attractor depends on the external forcings that influence the climate. Such forcings can affect the mean values or variances, but regions of the attractor that are seldom visited can also be affected. It is an important challenge to measure how the climate attractor responds to different forcings. Currently, the Euclidean distance or similar measures like the Mahalanobis distance have been favoured to measure discrepancies between two climatic situations. Those distances do not have a natural building mechanism to take into account the attractor dynamics. In this paper, we argue that a Wasserstein distance, stemming from optimal transport theory, offers an efficient and practical way to discriminate between dynamical systems. After treating a toy example, we explore how the Wasserstein distance can be applied and interpreted to detect non-autonomous dynamics from a Lorenz system driven by seasonal cycles and a warming trend.

[AbruptSLR]

The linked article entitled: "Can Quantum Mechanics Save the Cosmic Multiverse?", applies lessons from the Many-Worlds Interpretation to gain insight that the multiverse can be considered as a "probability space" and that time is an "emergent concept"; which is in keeping with the HIOTTOE interpretation of rupa/material phenomena (see also the caveats in Reply #119).

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-quantum-mechanics-save-the-cosmic-multiverse/

Extract: "A surprising connection between cosmology and quantum mechanics could unveil the secrets of space and time

[Archimid]

I find this article fascinating.

The Quantum Thermodynamics Revolution

https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-quantum-thermodynamics-revolution-20170502/

Extract:

Maxwell and others wondered how a law of nature could depend on one’s knowledge — or ignorance — of the positions and velocities of molecules. If the second law of thermodynamics depends subjectively on one’s information, in what sense is it true?

A century later, the American physicist Charles Bennett, building on work by Leo Szilard and Rolf Landauer, resolved the paradox by formally linking thermodynamics to the young science of information. Bennett argued that the demon’s knowledge is stored in its memory, and memory has to be cleaned, which takes work. (In 1961, Landauer calculated that at room temperature, it takes at least 2.9 zeptojoules of energy for a computer to erase one bit of stored information.) In other words, as the demon organizes the gas into hot and cold and lowers the gas’s entropy, its brain burns energy and generates more than enough entropy to compensate. The overall entropy of the gas-demon system increases, satisfying the second law of thermodynamics.

[AbruptSLR]

Per the linked article, by using quantum science Maxwell's Demon can not only allow for the design of more efficient cooling & energy extraction systems (beyond that achievable following the 2nd law of thermodynamics); but will also facilitate the use of AI  (with less waste by improved use of information):

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/physicists-test-maxwells-demon-with-beams-of-light-2

Extract: "The demon’s ability to create this temperature difference without the expenditure of work appeared to Maxwell to be in violation of the second law of thermodynamics, which states that two bodies of different temperature, when brought into contact with one another in isolation from the rest of the universe, will establish a thermodynamic equilibrium. Another way of putting this is that in an isolated system, entropy never decreases—although Maxwell’s hypothetical did in fact seem to allow the entropy of the system to decrease.

In the years since Maxwell initially proposed his hypothetical, physicists have managed to satisfactorily explain away the evident paradox of Maxwell’s demon. According to some of these physicists’ explanations, although Maxwell’s demon is not directly doing work on the system, it is extracting information about the system by sorting the molecules. The process of extracting this information about the system is a form of work, and therefore the entropy of the system does in fact increase in accordance with the second law of thermodynamics.

Although physicists were able to show that Maxwell’s paradox didn’t actually violate the second law of thermodynamics, the exact nature of the relationship between the extraction of work from a system and the information about this system acquired through measurements which explained the paradox was not that well understood. This was the relationship that the Oxford team hoped to elucidate with their photonic demon.

…

According to the team, its experiment is the first step toward gaining a better understanding of how thermodynamics plays out on microscales. A better understanding of the link between information and thermodynamics could have a variety of real world applications, ranging from more efficient cooling and energy extraction systems to application in quantum information technologies.

“Personally I think that sort of technology will have a real impact on meeting the energy challenge facing the world,” said Dahlsten. “We are already thinking of ways in which features such as entanglement can be introduced in future experiments based on this one, as our interests gravitate around quantum information.”"

[AbruptSLR]

I suspect that AI programmers may have difficulty relating the lessons from the Abhidamma on citta (consciousness) and cetasika (mental factors) to AI programming as we approach the technological singularity.  Thus, as a follow-on to Reply #331, I provide a couple of comments directed toward clarifying this matter by starting by noting how game theory addresses uncertainties between reality and models.

First, I provide the following quote from the linked Wikipedia article entitled: "Prisoner's dilemma" (see also the attached image related to the influence of uncertainties on decision making in the prisoner's dilemma), that indicates that in 'wicked problems', it is uncertainty that makes them difficult to resolve.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma

Extract: "In environmental studies, the PD is evident in crises such as global climate-change. It is argued all countries will benefit from a stable climate, but any single country is often hesitant to curb CO2 emissions. The immediate benefit to any one country from maintaining current behavior is wrongly perceived to be greater than the purported eventual benefit to that country if all countries' behavior was changed, therefore explaining the impasse concerning climate-change in 2007.

An important difference between climate-change politics and the prisoner's dilemma is uncertainty; the extent and pace at which pollution can change climate is not known. The dilemma faced by government is therefore different from the prisoner's dilemma in that the payoffs of cooperation are unknown. This difference suggests that states will cooperate much less than in a real iterated prisoner's dilemma, so that the probability of avoiding a possible climate catastrophe is much smaller than that suggested by a game-theoretical analysis of the situation using a real iterated prisoner's dilemma.

Osang and Nandy provide a theoretical explanation with proofs for a regulation-driven win-win situation along the lines of Michael Porter's hypothesis, in which government regulation of competing firms is substantial."

Second, the following extracts from Arjovsky et.al. (2017) clarify how classical machine learning uses signal noise to generate probability density functions, pdfs; while Wasserstein Generative Adversarial Networks (WGAN), can use a neural network to generate sample data that can be used develop a better pdf than that generated by noise.  In this regards, the WGAN methodology better models how the mind uses one of numerous cittas (consciousness) can provide a structured input to cetasika (mental factors) based on what particular citta state that is triggered by both rupa & cetasika; which then creates a feedback loop.  To break this feedback cycle the Abhidamma recommends the use of the "twofold meditation" or "calm and insight".  Where calm replaces the noisy or preconditioned citta input (say from a strange attractor model); and insight (deductive and inductive logic) guides cetasika.


https://arxiv.org/abs/1701.07875

Extract: "The problem this paper is concerned with is that of unsupervised learning. Mainly, what does it mean to learn a probability distribution?
…
The typical remedy is to add a noise term to the model distribution. This is why virtually all generative models described in the classical machine learning literature include a noise component.
…
In other words, the added noise term is clearly incorrect for the problem, but is needed to make the maximum likelihood approach work.

Rather than estimating the density of Pr which may not exist, we can define a random variable Z with a fixed distribution p(z) and pass it through a parametric function g0 : Z ! X (typically a neural network of some kind) that directly generates samples following a certain distribution P0. By varying 0, we can change this distribution and make it close to the real data distribution Pr. This is useful in two ways. First of all, unlike densities, this approach can represent distributions confined to a low dimensional manifold. Second, the ability to easily generate samples is often more useful than knowing the numerical value of the density (for example in image superresolution or semantic segmentation when considering the conditional distribution of the output image given the input image). In general, it is computationally difficult to generate samples given an arbitrary high dimensional density."

[AbruptSLR]

I suspect that AI programmers may have difficulty relating the lessons from the Abhidamma on citta (consciousness) and cetasika (mental factors) to AI programming as we approach the technological singularity.

...  the following extracts from Arjovsky et.al. (2017) clarify how classical machine learning uses signal noise to generate probability density functions, pdfs; while Wasserstein Generative Adversarial Networks (WGAN), can use a neural network to generate sample data that can be used develop a better pdf than that generated by noise.  In this regards, the WGAN methodology better models how the mind uses one of numerous cittas (consciousness) can provide a structured input to cetasika (mental factors) based on what particular citta state that is triggered by both rupa & cetasika; which then creates a feedback loop.  To break this feedback cycle the Abhidamma recommends the use of the "twofold meditation" or "calm and insight".  Where calm replaces the noisy or preconditioned citta input (say from a strange attractor model); and insight (deductive and inductive logic) guides cetasika.

With regards to the above quote the "sample data" that cittas inputs to create pdfs, can be thought of as a seed set; which in Pali is called a saṅkhāra.

The linked Wikipedia article is entitled: "Saṅkhāra", and it explains how the preconditioned 'seed set' from cittas, set in motion the feedback chain of suffering (or upādāna, per the second linked Wikipedia article).  Such insight can be helpful for AI modeling of the strange attractors representing the different preconditioned states of cittas.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sa%E1%B9%85kh%C4%81ra

Extract: "Saṅkhāra (Pali; Sanskrit saṃskāra) is a term figuring prominently in Buddhism. The word means 'that which has been put together' and 'that which puts together'.
In the first (passive) sense, saṅkhāra refers to conditioned phenomena generally but specifically to all mental "dispositions". These are called 'volitional formations' both because they are formed as a result of volition and because they are causes for the arising of future volitional actions. English translations for saṅkhāra in the first sense of the word include 'conditioned things,' 'determinations,' 'fabrications' and 'formations' (or, particularly when referring to mental processes, 'volitional formations').

In the second (active) sense of the word, saṅkhāra refers to karma (sankhara-khandha) that leads to conditioned arising, dependent origination."

See also the following linked Wikipedia article entitled: "Upādāna".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Up%C4%81d%C4%81na

Extract: "Upādāna is a Vedic Sanskrit and Pali word that means "fuel, material cause, substrate that is the source and means for keeping an active process energized". It is also an important Buddhist concept referring to "attachment, clinging, grasping". It is considered to be the result of taṇhā (craving), and is part of the dukkha (suffering, pain) doctrine in Buddhism."

[Hyperion]

Gosh ASLR!    Impressed by the quantum metaphysical rarified air in which you are soaring.
May I ask. Have you ever transcended time and space?  Such a fascinating multiverse we live in innit?
I like Jainism for its clear description of the progression of the soul through increasing number of dimensions. Earning our 4th dimensional wings by proving we can be responsible in our understanding and application of cause and effect in the sandpit level matrix these earthchild fleshbags are currently chained to. Learn to share your toys kids! Can't go letting those addicted to Zero or especially negative sum games lose in time, that would be capital T truble. I do like Discordianism. Bit of a natural Phool, me I'm afraid. Can be a rough ride at times when you find you've accidentally planted a bunch of Ju-Ju seeds. The free will thing heres a conundrum. Most would prefer not to believe that this is a fake reality we are living in and most are slaves being used just like batteries to feed extra-dimensional entities with psychic energy. So things like warping time and stepping into localised bubbles of parallel timestream is something you'd be violating their right to free will if you were allowed to put proof on the table. Helps to keep me sane (almost anyway ) to feel reasonably sure that in the fifth dimension of possible futures the Hyperversal consciousness probably plays out all outcomes that theres something interesting to learn from. And so the Oceans won't get shortly boiled in some versions at least.
You seem very attached to buddhisim. Don't they say "if you meet the Buddha in your path, then kill him!" (following anothers path leads not to the all, but to him.) I like these quotes from the Hagakure:

"There is surely nothing other than the single purpose of the present moment. A man's whole life is a succession of moment after moment. If one fully understands the present moment, there will be nothing else to do, and nothing else to pursue." -Hagakure

"It is a good viewpoint to see the world as a dream. When you have something like a nightmare, you will wake up and tell yourself that it was only a dream. It is said that the world we live in is not a bit different from this." -Hagakure

"It is said that what is called the Spirit of an Age is something to which one cannot return. That this spirit gradually dissipates is due to the world's coming to an end. In the same way, a single year does not have just spring or summer. A single day, too, is the same. For this reason, although one would like to change today's world back to the spirit of one hundred years or more ago, it cannot be done. Thus it is important to make the best out of every generation. "

Yamamoto Tsunetomo
the Hagakure (Hidden behind the Leaves).

 Bit tired right now. Hellova day. these ape-souls can be revolting. Keep up the good work!

Couple of pics you might enjoy:

[AbruptSLR]

You seem very attached to buddhisim. Don't they say "if you meet the Buddha in your path, then kill him!" (following anothers path leads not to the all, but to him.) I like these quotes from the Hagakure:

Hyperion,

I am attached to Vipassana meditation, which is non-sectarian and non-'ism', including non-Buddhism.  Nevertheless, it is much earlier to post literature that is labeled as being Buddhist, rather than writing all original material.  Most people are easily confused by the teachings of the Buddha and so they tend to translate it into a dogma.  So I would rather say, that if I meet Buddhist dogma in the street I would 'conquer' it; but I definitely would not kill a Buddha.  As to what I have experienced, it is very difficult to say.

Best,
ASLR

[Hyperion]

Its a buddhist Koan. It means follow your own path. Any teachers path leads only to their ultimate self not yours.

In Discordianism we say let your Karma run over your Dogma. Please don't ever take me too seriously. I almost never deliberately set out to cause offence. But I am known for being a bit elfish.
 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discordianism

The Principia Discordia, if read literally, encourages the worship of Eris, a.k.a. Discordia, the Goddess of chaos, or archetypes and or ideals associated with her. The Principia Discordia holds three core principles: the Aneristic Principle (order), the Eristic Principle (disorder) and the notion that both are mere illusions. It is only by rejecting these principles that you can truly perceive reality.

It is difficult to estimate the number of Discordians because they are not required to hold Discordianism as their only belief system,[3] and because there is an encouragement to form schisms and cabals.[4][5]

[AbruptSLR]

But I am known for being a bit elfish.
 

As the old Buddhist saying goes: There are only two mistakes that one can make on the path to enlightenment.  Not getting started and stopping before one reaches the final goal.

Good luck on your path; and may all beings be happy.

[Hyperion]

But I am known for being a bit elfish.
 

As the old Buddhist saying goes: There are only two mistakes that one can make on the path to enlightenment.  Not getting started and stopping before one reaches the final goal.

Good luck on your path; and may all beings be happy.

Is there a final goal? Some think its the white Aura state of whats referred to as nirvana,enlightenment,moksha..... Most people who attain it get seduced by the, admittedly extremely pleasant experience of constant serendipity and serenity. Fall into the ego trap and turn to the Dark side of the force as it were. The long dark night of the soul/death of ego/ great unselfing is a real bitch of an experience and few get through that. Worth it though. You don't have much free will in the white aura state. sort of a surrender of your capacity as a change agent. How many levels that its possible to ascend while wearing a Earthly fleshbag is a big question.
Jainist version of the multiverse:



 Personally I think that its a matter of reaching a level of understanding of wider cultural and physical processes at different scales of the single fractal universal pandimensional wavefunction. which It looks very much like it might be:

https://scitechdaily.com/reinterpretation-cold-dark-matter-bose-einstein-condensate/

The Don Hotson Papers I've attached are an interesting read that the Bose-Einstein condensate hypothesis supports. His development of the Dirac Sea hypothesis.

    With our concept-making apparatus called "the brain" we look at reality through the ideas-about-reality which our cultures give us. The ideas-about-reality are mistakenly labeled "reality" and unenlightened people are forever perplexed by the fact that other people, especially other cultures, see "reality" differently.

    It is only the ideas-about-reality which differ. Real (capital-T) True reality is a level deeper than is the level of concept. We look at the world through windows on which have been drawn grids (concepts). Different philosophies use different grids. A culture is a group of people with rather similar grids. Through a window we view chaos, and relate it to the points on our grid, and thereby understand it. The order is in the grid. That is the Aneristic Principle.

    Western philosophy is traditionally concerned with contrasting one grid with another grid, and amending grids in hopes of finding a perfect one that will account for all reality and will, hence, (say unenlightened westerners) be true. This is illusory; it is what we Erisians call the Aneristic Illusion. Some grids can be more useful than others, some more beautiful than others, some more pleasant than others, etc., but none can be more True than any other.

    Disorder is simply unrelated information viewed through some particular grid. But, like "relation", no-relation is a concept. Male, like female, is an idea about sex. To say that male-ness is "absence of female-ness", or vice versa, is a matter of definition and metaphysically arbitrary. The artificial concept of no-relation is the Eristic Principle.

    The belief that "order is true" and disorder is false or somehow wrong, is the Aneristic Illusion. To say the same of disorder, is the Eristic Illusion.
    The point is that (little-t) truth is a matter of definition relative to the grid one is using at the moment, and that (capital-T) Truth, metaphysical reality, is irrelevant to grids entirely. Pick a grid, and through it some chaos appears ordered and some appears disordered. Pick another grid, and the same chaos will appear differently ordered and disordered.
    — Malaclypse the Younger, Principia Discordia, pages 00049–00050

Dalton Millers interferometer  work also scorched Einsteins theorys with proof of an ether, though not a rigid universal one but one that is entrained by matter. And lets just say that many have experienced the effects that our conscious will can have in warping the fabric of space time we are embedded in.

May all beings be happy? Nice thought. but in the words of talking heads:
"Heaven, is a place, where nothing ever happens!" And the wouldn't be much to learn from that.
Jainists and Most other wisdoms reckon such a time is not near yet anyway:



 
the Dragons/serpents eating each others tails of the Orobouros, Yin/ yang... all symbolise opposing forces in tension. As with the Sacred Chao of Discordianism:



That Greyface chap has a lot to answer for

Discordian Wiki

In YOLD 0, a malcontented hunchbrain by the name of Greyface, got it into his head that the universe was as humorless as he, and he began to teach that play was sinful because it contradicted the ways of Serious Order. "Look at all the order around you," he said. And from that, he deluded honest men to believe that reality was a straightjacket affair and not the happy romance as men had known it.

It is not presently understood why men were so gullible at that particular time, for absolutely no one thought to observe all the disorder around them and conclude just the opposite. But anyway, Greyface and his followers took the game of playing at life more seriously than they took life itself and were known even to destroy other living beings whose ways of life differed from their own.

The unfortunate result of this is that mankind has since been suffering from a psychological and spiritual imbalance. Imbalance causes frustration, and frustration causes fear. And fear makes for a bad trip. Man has been on a bad trip for a long time now.
To choose order over disorder, or disorder over order, is to accept a trip composed of both the creative and the destructive. But to choose the creative over the destructive is an all-creative trip composed of both order and disorder. To accomplish this, one need only accept creative disorder along with, and equal to, creative order, and also willing to reject destructive order as an undesirable equal to destructive disorder.
The Curse of Greyface included the division of life into order/disorder as the essential positive/negative polarity, instead of building a game foundation with creative/destructive as the essential positive/negative. He has thereby caused man to endure the destructive aspects of order and has prevented man from effectively participating in the creative uses of disorder. Civilization reflects this unfortunate division.

POEE proclaims that the other division is preferable, and we work toward the proposition that creative disorder, like creative order, is possible and desirable; and that destructive order, like destructive disorder, is unnecessary and undesirable. 

The Ultimate Guide to Freedom Attached is nice and accessible and makes a pleasant read.

[Hyperion]

EEK!!

CERN Researchers Apologize For Destruction Of 5 Parallel Universes In Recent Experiment

GENEVA—Expressing deep regret over the catastrophic incident that occurred within the Large Hadron Collider, officials from the European Organization for Nuclear Research, also known as CERN, held a press conference Monday to apologize for the destruction of five parallel universes in a recent experiment. “We are sorry to report that in conducting research involving high-powered proton-proton collisions, we inadvertently caused the implosion of five universes nearly identical to our own,” said CERN Director-General Fabiola Gianotti, adding that billions of people worldwide might have experienced momentary vertigo around 9:45 a.m. as a result of several of their alternate identities being wiped from existence. “I’d like to emphasize that there is no need to worry, as we were able to contain the damage before our own time stream disintegrated into oblivion like the others. Furthermore, in order to perform an investigation, the LHC will be shut down for the remainder of the afternoon.” At press time, a team of CERN researchers in a parallel universe was preparing to perform the exact same experiment.

http://www.theonion.com/article/cern-researchers-apologize-destruction-5-parallel--55780

[AbruptSLR]

To me full enlightenment is about extinguishing the cycle of ignorance that generates the burden of suffering.  Ignorance frequently leads to the 'magic think' of '-isms', whether scientism, Buddhism, Judaism, Jainism, or others; that is typically associated with 'Frequentist' interpretations of absolute truth as opposed to Bayesianist interpretations that admit that any posterior may contain an error.

Hegel pointed-out that virtually all '-isms' contain partial truth (thesis), while lacking part of the truth (antithesis), that set in motion a dialectic of conflict that results in a temporary synthesis before the dialectic spiral begins again due to misinterpretations (also I note that Hegel's goal was to achieve an end to '-isms').  As such, to me, it seems wiser to build on the positive aspects of any '-ism' rather than to attack the limitations of other '-isms' (see the first two attached cartoons).  Otherwise, it would be easy to childishly attack Jainism for utilizing a swastika (see the third image), rather than to benefit from its millennia of insights.

Thus since I opened this thread on "System Isolation" I have focused on presenting Bayesian logic that can be used to improve priori estimates using new observational evidence to generate improved posteriors that can in turn be updated as more information is gathered; which is also called the "Scientific Method".  For example, I have applied the scientific method and information science to show that HIOTTOE conforms to all current scientific evidence and thus cannot be eliminated from consideration (even though its timeless evolved free-will information network, could easily be misinterpreted as being a network of conscious souls; which it most certainly is not).

[AbruptSLR]

For those who do not know, I also post about many issues associated with addressing 'Systemic Isolation' using the scientific method in the 'Adapting to the Anthropocene' thread in the Science folder.

http://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,1308.200.html

In the 'Adapting to the Anthropocene' thread I introduced the topic of HIOTTOE (Holoborg [holographic cybernetic organism] Interpretation of the Theory of Everything); T-4IR (Technocracy for the 4th Industrial Revolution); the introduction of mindfulness into studies of psychology, sociology and neuroscience of well-being; AGI (artificial general intelligence) & the technological singularity; and information science.  It is my belief at as we approach the technological singularity circa 2045 that AGI will allow for the testing of many of my more esoteric assertions, in accordance with the scientific method.

[AbruptSLR]

The first linked article is entitled: "A mathematical view on personality"; and it introduces the concept of how attractors can be used to model the human psyche within a network (including the use of energy landscape concepts).

http://blogs.plos.org/neuro/2016/03/21/a-mathematical-view-on-personality-by-solve-saebo/


Extract: "Interestingly, more diffuse properties of the human psyche, like personality (Van Eenwyk, 1997) and consciousness (Tononi, 2004) may, in fact, be connected to mathematical properties of networks, and in this post I will focus on what mathematics can teach us about these matters.

In mathematics there are complex models for information transfer across networks called attractor networks, and the neural network of our brain appears to be well approximated by these models
…
Attractor networks are built from nodes (for example neurons) which typically are recurrently linked (loops) with edges (like synaptic connections), and the dynamics of the network tend to stabilize at least locally to certain patterns. These stable patterns are the attractors. For example, a memory stored in long time memory may be considered as a so-called point attractor, a subnetwork of strongly connected neurons.

The point attractors are low-energy states in an energy landscape with surrounding basins of attraction, much like hillsides surrounding the bottom of a valley, as shown in the figure below. {see the first attached image}
…
Also other types of mathematical attractors exist, like line-, plane- and cyclic attractors, and these have been used to explain neural responses like eye-vision control and cyclic motor control, like walking and chewing (Eliasmith, 2005).
Common to these attractors are their stability and predictability, and this is good with regard to having stable memory and stable bodily control, but what about personality? Is personality also an attractor? Do we all have our basins of attraction, which pulls our personality towards stable behavior?

Probably yes, but if you think about it, personality is a more unpredictable property than memory and body control. We think we know someone, and the suddenly they behave in an unexpected manner. Still, the overall personality seems to be more or less stable. How can something be both stable and unpredictable at the same time?

Well there is another class of attractors that may occur in attractor networks. These are the strange (or chaotic) attractors, and they are exactly that, partly stable and partly unpredictable. We say they are bounded, but non-repeating.

A famous example is the Lorenz attractor discovered by Edward Lorenz while he was programming his “weather machine” where typical weather patterns appeared, but never repeated themselves. In the figure below {see the second attached image} the blue curve is pulled towards the red strange attractor state, and once it enters the attractor, it is bound to follow a certain pattern, though it never repeats itself.

The discovery of strange attractors led to the development of chaos theory and fractal geometry in mathematics. Many phenomena around us may develop smoothly in linear predictable fashions until a certain border is reached, at which point a chaotic state appears before a new order may be settled."


The second linked reference cites the development of a dissipative strange attractor that coexists with an invariant conservative torus that can be used to better model brain dynamics.

Artuor Tozzi and James F. Peters (2016), "TOWARDS EQUATIONS FOR BRAIN DYNAMICS AND THE CONCEPT OF EXTENDED CONNECTOME"

http://rxiv.org/pdf/1609.0045v1.pdf

Abstract: "The brain is a system at the edge of chaos equipped with nonlinear dynamics and functional energetic landscapes.  However, still doubts exist concerning the type of attractors or the trajectories followed by particles in the nervous phase space. Starting from an unusual system governed by differential equations in which a dissipative strange attractor coexists with an invariant conservative torus, we developed a 3D model of brain phase space which has the potential to be operationalized and assessed empirically. We achieved a system displaying both a torus and a strange attractor, depending just on the initial conditions. Further, the system generates a funnel-like attractor equipped with a fractal structure. Changes in three easily detectable brain phase parameters (log frequency, excitatory/inhibitory ratio and fractal slope) lead to modifications in funnel’s breadth or in torus/attractor superimposition: it explains a large repertoire of brain functions and activities, such as sensations/perceptions, memory and self-generated thoughts."

Extract: "Starting from the unusual Sprott’s system of ODEs, we built a system equipped with both a conservative torus and a dissipative strange attractor. When a moving particle starts its trajectory from a given position x,y,z in the 3D nervous phase space, we may predict whether it will fall in the torus or into the strange attractor. The funnel shape is fractal, and not just a simple fixed-point attractor. A narrower funnel means that the trajectory is constrained towards a small zone of the phase space. When the two structures are closely superimposed, we might hypothesize a state of phase transition at the edge of the chaos, equipped with high symmetry, in which it is difficult to evaluate every single initial position: a slightly change in the starting point could indeed lead to completely different outcomes. When the torus and the strange attractor are clearly splitted, a single starting point gives rise to a sharp outcome. It means that in the latter case, the two conformations are neatly separated, as if the system went out of phase transition and a symmetry breaking occurred."

The third linked reference develops the concept of an attractor network to better understand how to calibrate nonlinear dynamical networks.
Wang et al (2016), "A geometrical approach to control and controllability of nonlinear dynamical networks", Nature communications 7, Article No. 11323, doi: 10.1038/ncomms11323.


http://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms11323


The fourth linked reference and the associated fifth linked article, discuss a new efficient Monte Carlo method that can be used to more efficiently find solutions to models of wick problems:

Stefano Martiniani et al. Structural analysis of high-dimensional basins of attraction, Physical Review E (2016). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevE.94.031301


http://journals.aps.org/pre/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevE.94.031301

Abstract: "We propose an efficient Monte Carlo method for the computation of the volumes of high-dimensional bodies with arbitrary shape. We start with a region of known volume within the interior of the manifold and then use the multistate Bennett acceptance-ratio method to compute the dimensionless free-energy difference between a series of equilibrium simulations performed within this object. The method produces results that are in excellent agreement with thermodynamic integration, as well as a direct estimate of the associated statistical uncertainties. The histogram method also allows us to directly obtain an estimate of the interior radial probability density profile, thus yielding useful insight into the structural properties of such a high-dimensional body. We illustrate the method by analyzing the effect of structural disorder on the basins of attraction of mechanically stable packings of soft repulsive spheres."


The linked article is entitled: "New method for making effective calculations in 'high-dimensional space'".

http://phys.org/news/2016-10-method-effective-high-dimensional-space.html


Extract: " Researchers have developed a new method for making effective calculations in "high-dimensional space" – and proved its worth by using it to solve a 93-dimensional problem.

…
Those include, for example, trying to model the likely shape and impact of a decaying ecosystem, such as a developing area of deforestation, or the potential effect of different levels of demand on a power grid.

…
"There is a very large class of problems that can be solved through the sort of approach that we have devised," Martiniani said. "It opens up a whole world of possibilities in the study of things like dynamical systems, chemical structure prediction, or artificial neural networks."

…
The set of initial conditions leading to this stable state is called a "basin of attraction". The fundamental theory is that, if the volume of each basin of attraction can be calculated, then this begins to provide some sort of indication of the probability of a given state's occurrence."

[AbruptSLR]

Regarding insights on the future of "inquiring systems" including machine learning for artificial general intelligence (AGI), I reference Churchman (1971), The Design of Inquiring Systems: Basic Concepts of Systems and Organizations, Basic Books, Inc.

http://www8.informatik.umu.se/~kivanov/ChurchmanDIS.pdf

Churchman (1971) indicates that a Hegelian inquiring system is dialectical in the sense that knowledge is created through a conflictual thesis-antithesis-synthesis cycle, which "… is soaring to greater heights, to self-awareness, more completeness, betterment, progress."  Here the 'guarantor' (see the extract from the link below) of the Hegelian inquiring system is synthesis that opposes the conflict between the thesis and its antithesis.

See also:

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4419-9707-4_19#page-1

Extract: "The guarantor serves to ensure that the knowledge created by the system is consistent with the philosophy on which the system is based and "true" to the extent that it is not believed to be false"

Edit: The first attached image shows a metaphoric image of a dialectic double helical spiral leading to synthesis as a guarantor that the conflict between thesis and antithesis can be resolved.  The second attached image show a metaphoric image of a hero's journey from the known through the unknown on one loop of a dialectic double helix.

Edit 2: I note that Churchman was the first to formally use the term "wicked problem" (see the third image), with regards to systems management (which may require heroic solutions).

[AbruptSLR]

This is a re--post from the "Adapting to the Anthropocene" thread, as I like the different terms that it uses to express parallel concepts:

Trinity

1. Hierarchy –Heterarchy - Responsible Autonomy (Triarchy Theory)
2. Deductive Logic – Inductive Logic – Reduced Entropy (Scientific Processes)
3. Faith – Wisdom – Energy (Types of Great Bodhisattas)
4. Sanga – Buddha – Dhamma (Triple Gem)
5. Father – Son – Holy Ghost (Holy Trinity)
6. Holy – Holy – Holy (Seraphim)
7. Atapi – Sampanjano – Satima (Pali Cannon)

http://www.triarchypress.net/triarchy-theory.html

Extract: "Triarchy Theory refers to the three fundamental ways of getting things done in organizations: hierarchy, heterarchy and responsible autonomy.

All organizations use a mixture of these three ways, but the proportions can differ widely. At present, hierarchy is usually considered essential for all organizations. Heterarchy and responsible autonomy are often misunderstood or neglected. Here is an outline;

The pecking order is a common feature of animal communities, but there are instances where some animal groups - meerkats for example - have developed interchanging roles for the good of the colony. Even here, however, there are alpha males and females.

Triarchy theory suggests that our "addiction to hierarchy" drains the energy from collaborative projects and sometimes fails to recognise the input of able individuals whose contributions can be overlooked in a formal reporting structure.

We all know of bosses who have taken credit for work accomplished by members of their teams or who have stifled innovative work for reasons of company politics. But it is not only the possibility for this kind of behaviour that limits the effectiveness of hierarchy. A larger problem is the focus it places on a few designated individuals who are expected to make the right decisions on every occasion.

The problem with hierarchy is that it has too often bred authoritarianism, creating fear in some cases and dependence in others. So that 50 years ago, W Edwards Deming was urging organizations to drive out fear (even as others counselled managers to use fear to extract the best from their staff - a process famously likened to the potent "last fart of the ferret"). Even when a hierarchy is relatively benign it can inhibit independent thinking by maintaining habitual relationships, allowing some to settle in comfort zones with few responsibilities:

"In a strictly hierarchical organization, the only learning that takes place is the learning of the individual at the top. Everyone else obeys orders. An organization without learning will only survive in very stable conditions. In practice, of course, the lower ranks actually learn and adapt without being told to do so. But hierarchies tend to learn slowly, especially because a lot of effort goes into preserving the superior status of those at the top, inevitably an anti-learning activity."

Triarchy theory speculates that a spontaneous emergence of hierarchy among groups of people, even in pre-school children, may have something to do with genetic predisposition. This would help to explain why hierarchies are almost taken for granted in our society. But if there is no inevitability about hierarchy what sort of organization could exist in its place? The two alternatives are "heterarchy" and "responsible autonomy".

Heterarchy is divided, supported or dispersed rule where control shifts around depending on the project and the personality, skills, experience and enthusiasm of those who can make things happen. Much of the project work that is becoming common in large technology companies fits this kind of arrangement.

Triarchy theory then points to the kind of responsible autonomy enjoyed by fund managers who tend to be left to themselves if their fund is performing well. Success attracts a larger fund and more clients. Autonomy is provided by the internal policies of the investment institution. Accountability is provided by the performance of the fund.

Heterarchy's battles are those of ideas, fostering the kind of debate that demands greater personal responsibility. There is a mass of evidence to suggest that, in the 21st century, the time is ripe for sustainable change in the ways that organizations get things done. The result, triarchy theory suggests, will be a gradual move away from hierarchy in organizations."

See also:

http://www.triarchypress.net/the-three-ways-of-getting-things-done.html

&

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Responsible_autonomy