Re: virus: accurate statements vs The Absolute Truth (was KMO

zaimoni@ksu.edu
Sun, 17 Nov 1996 11:13:41 -0600 (CST)


On Mon, 27 Aug 1956, David Leeper wrote:

> Kenneth Boyd,

[CLIP]

> : However, my heuristics suggest that Absolute Truth constrains Objective
> : Relativity, and that Objective Reality constrains TRTH, above.
>
> This makes me sound like a Philosophy Professor: What do you mean by
> "Absolute Truth"?

I'm not at the level of formal definition yet, for ANY of these concepts.
I'll give the heuristics I'm currently using.

[Relativity is a typo, above.]

Concrete to abstract....

I take "Objective Reality" to subsume whatever is running the virtual
reality of my subjective experience. After assuming solipsism out of
consideration, this is presumably the same driver for everyone on this list.
Much debate over the past few millenia has gone into what is an
appropriate mental model for this driver. The Science subform of
Magic is by and far outracing all of the competition in physical reality,
and is catching up in psychological reality with the effective religions
[Science has already outperformed the ineffective religions in this domain].

"Absolute Truth", [by the way, I won't let this have a
truth-value, any more than I let "truth" have a truth-value. How absurd.]
whatever it is, has the very nasty habit of outright dictating the
behavior of "Objective Reality" in some circumstances. Mathematics is
somewhat related to "Absolute Truth", and provides most of the convenient
examples. When "proper linkages of math into Objective Reality" are set
up, the effects of the mathematics dominate.
[I don't think mathematics is the sole language of "Absolute Truth".
It's too limited. Also, I have seen some very badly written mathematics!
The most egregious examples, I call "fantasy math": the hypotheses are
never true in practice....]

For example:
[Natural Selection as a side effect of Absolute Truth acting on
Objective Reality]

Natural selection is an immediate result of the mathematics of Ordinary
Differential Equations, on any large system where genetic algorithms are
used [such as biological life]. Unfortunately, this mathematics is
highly myopic, and so natural selection inherently gets stuck on "short
time scales" [as opposed to "long time scales", or when "intelligence"
starts interfering.]

Numerical modelling of natural selection is hampered by two things:
1) "Large system" is essential. The phenomena called "random drift" and
"founder effect" result from working with "small systems".
2) The error of an approximate solution grows exponentially with time,
when projected either backwards or forwards, in the absence of decent
convergence properties.

Has anyone seen a technical model for biological speciation? I still
want some sort of reference to look at.

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/ Kenneth Boyd
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