> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-virus@lucifer.com
> [mailto:owner-virus@lucifer.com]On Behalf
> Of Tim Rhodes
> Sent: Wednesday, May 12, 1999 5:09 PM
> To: virus@lucifer.com
> Subject: Re: virus: maxims and ground rules and suppositions
>
>
> TheHermit wrote:
> >The fact that I was able to respond to your requests at all, is
> >because everything "real" has complex interrelationships - which I
> >exploited.
>
> Which I think was, in large part, the point made by the
> would-be maxim.
> Remove the complex interrelationships and you aren't left with much
> afterwords but jots on a page.
Saying "remove the complex relationships" will not alter them by an iota.
The complex relationships continue to exist and the truths about them
continue to exist irrespective of what you choose to do with your symbols.
Your symbols simply represent them well, represent them poorly or don't
represent them at all. I would argue that a pragmatic approach to "how well"
the symbols represent the complex relations for a particular purpose is what
allows us to determine what a "statement of truth" is. If you are now
arguing that a "statement of truth" exists outside of a "reality" in which
you are making the "statement of truth", then I fail to see how you can
possibly determine what "truth" is, and thus would suggest that you lose the
ability to determine if a "real" change in meaning has occured when the
"statement of truth" is examined within another context. Which would mean
that the wannabe-maxim is useless even if it were true?
> >Which brings us back to: "All statements of truth are embedded a
You cannot and still have a "statement of truth". That is exactly my point.
That the "statement of truth" has existence only because
> >I am going to try to remove the "frame of reference" e.g.
> >particular frame of reference from which they cannot be
> separated without
> >becoming suppositions." The "frame of reference" for my
> "Blue period" is
> the
> >reality of the universe and the nature of "Blue". It has
> nothing to do with
> >the actual notation used to denote an attribute of blue.
>
> So remove the statement from the frame of reference and have
> it still make
> sense, then.
> Joules, that you
> >so object to, and using just the universe's attributes still provide
> >"statements of truth". The "useful" statements I made about
> "Blue", are so
> >tied into the fabric of our universe that no matter where I
> looked they
> >crept out. Few people would recognise the numbers I gave as
> being "blue"
> >without help - a context if you would. Yet if I had removed
> the "J"
> >this last statement - thus "Blue=4.1684x10^-19" - and seeing
> as you seem to
> >imagine there is something "special" about exponential
> notation, perhaps
> >"Blue=0.000 000 000 000 000 000 416 840", the essential
> truth remains that
> >that energy level represented is only available from a "blue photon".
>
> What energy level? You stopped representing energy when you
> removed the "J"
> and if you just wrote "Blue=4.1684x10^-19" on a phsyics test
> the teacher
> would mark you wrong. (And for good reason!) Is Blue=0.000
> 000 000 000 000
> 000 416 840 mph? Is Blue=0.000 000 000 000 000 000 416 840
> grams? Or maybe
> Blue=0.000 000 000 000 000 000 416 840 parsecs?
Erm, no. You and the teacher would be wrong. The number gives the eV level,
the ratio between the resting level and the exited level of an electron in a
hydrogen atom stimulated by a blue photon or quanta. In other words, it is a
valueless ratio - which conveniently (because the Joule is defined in eV
Units) can be expressed in Joules (it represents an energy level, a
"distance" from the nucleus as well as the balance of forces in the atom at
a particular moment). Only by adding an invalid context do you make it "no
longer a truth". You have also not succeeded in making it a supposition.
Just no longer a truth and thus beyond the wanna-be-maxim.
>
Ummm, it says quite a bit about anatomy (including fingers), vision,
trignometry and geometry. At least when you notice how much of the moon is
obscured by your finger and think about it a bit.
> Sure, blue itself isn't changing at all in any of this. The
> moon stays in
> the same place no matter which finger you use to point at it
> with, doesn't
> it?
>
> (That doesn't shed much light on the nature of fingers
> though, does it?)
>
> You might try breaking down grammer of the maxim before you
> get too far
> this again. What's the subject, for instance? It's a
> statement about the
> nature of statements isn't it? Not about the nature of
> reality. (Which
> couldn't give a hoot how you describe it.)
> These particular
> statements are
> all meaningless out of context:
>
No, they all represent significant aspects of "universal truths" in many
contexts. Particularly the fibonacci sequence (or the golden ratio), e,
Plankes constant and the Gas constant. What you are obviously failing to
grasp is that it is the fact that we have agreed that these digit symbols
represent values which provides a context. If you wish to toss all
rationality aside and translate them into a private babbling then you remove
the ability to communicate and thus the ability to determine a contextual
truth (wannabe-maxim fails in the 1st clause), and you remove the ability to
establish an alternative framework in which the truths that these values
represent might take on the value of a "supposition" (wannabe-maxim fails in
the 2nd clause). If you don't do that, then you recognise that they
represent a value. And the ratios that these values represent have
significance which is determined by the reality of the universe. If you
recognise that, then you have agreed that they have a truth value as they
stand. Which will not change as you alter their contexts, or which will make
them become false statements (as you did below) (such that the wannabe-maxim
fails to be relevant) or which will make them meaningless (so that they
maxim fails in that they have not become suppositions).
How do you define "truth" as used in the maxim?
I have argued that there are certain realities which exist apart from your
statements about it. When your statements match reality well enough to be
useful for a given purpose, they are "true". When they fail
> >1.41421...
> >3.14159...
> >6.626...x10^-41
> >2.71828...
> >0.70711...
> >1.618...
> >8.3145107...
> >
> >1,2,3,4,5,6,7...
> >1,1,2,3,5,8,13...
> >1,2,4,8,16,32,64...
> >1,4,9,16,25,36,49,64...
>
>
> The fact that, when put into context, they become very
> powerful, has very
> little to do with the nature of those particular strings of
> numbers. How
> about:
>
> >1.41421... times the diameter of a circle equals its circumfrence
> >3.14159... is the squareroot of 2
> >6.626...x10^-41 is the speed of sound in a vaccuum
> >2.71828... is the cuberoot of e
> >0.70711... miles per hour is the speed of light
> And so
>
> No longer true or useful statements about anything are they?
Here you make my point for me. That in order to invalidate the nature represented by the patterns I provided, you had to add a sequence of letter symbols which falsified their significance. That is, that you had to add to those numbers a false context to invalidate the "truths" that those numbers represent. So I take it that you are acknowledging that the numbers I proposed represent "some truth about reality" even when divorced from a context. Which means that expressed alone, these numbers do reflect "a truth". As in my previous example, you had to create a false context to remove "the truth" from them.
>
> >So, if you agree with me that these digit sequences (numbers and
> >progressions) are "useful truths" in that they denote
> certain "special"
> >values tied into the fabric of the universe or the nature of numbers,
>
> When in context, yes.
But what are you suggesting is the context? I am suggesting that the context
is the universe. And as you exist in the universe, you cannot avoid the
context. They are built in constants in the nature of space-time and the
energy-matter duality.
>
> >and that they remain "useful truths" without a particular "frame of
> reference",
>
> But did you see the above? I just showed how they weren't at
> all. That
> when you change the frame of reference they are no longer
> useful, in fact,
> they're just plain dead wrong!
>
I don't understand what relevance you think this has in regards to the
wannabe-maxim? I think you demonstrated anything about it all. You created
either a lie or a meaningless babble so far as anyone else is concerned -
because you sacrificed your ability to communicate effectively. But the
values represented by the symbols continued to have their original values.
And I cannot visualise how you imagined that you have turned the original
"statements of truth" into a supposition. See above.
>
> It's _really_ to step out of your context,isn't it?
Please translate?
>
> Sorry, but agian, I think you need to rethink your belief
> that these (or
> any) numbers "remain "useful truths" without a particular "frame of
> reference"."
>
> (Unless your going to tell me that these are sacred mystical
> numbers that
> are meaningful regardless of the relationships they
> represent. But I'd be
> truly surprised to find you having high tea in the Numerology
> camp too much
> of the time.)
>
No, no. It is the other way around. The Q'uabalists and others noticed that
some numbers have "special properties" and by induction, assumed that
because some numbers have "magical properties" that "all numbers have
magical properties". The numbers and sequences I chose, I selected because
they relate to the nature of numbers and the nature of the universe. They
represent "truths" because they represent ratios which are "real" and occur
over and over again. Once you start studying mathematics, or physics or
chemistry or biology or astronomy, they leap out in all sorts of
delightfully "unexpected" places. The fact that I wrote them in a particular
notation doesn't affect the underlying ratios. It is the ratios themselves
which have significance. Even though sacred and mystical does not come into
it. They are a function of structure. Some of them (e.g. "e", would remain
the same in any universe where counting can occur and areas are possible -
the value is intrinsic to those capabilities).
> -Prof. Tim
>
>
TheHermit <Who wonders if Prof Tim is being deliberately obtuse or if he is
participating in a high tea taken with a Q'uabalist :-) >