[Paleopsych] Re: Big bang in mm sizes
Joel Isaacson
isaacsonj at hotmail.com
Sun Jun 12 02:59:11 UTC 2005
>From: HowlBloom at aol.com
>
>Joel--
>
>Your CA approach, based on the building of barriers, distinctions,
>boundaries,membranes, and other separators is extremely helpful. The CA
>approach in
>general has been a useful tool for understanding self-organization of
>extraordinary complexity based on very, very simple rules.
>
>But I have a question. The whorls Basse talks about in his mini-big-bangs
>are apparently similar to the irregular whorls that Smoot claims rumpled
>the
>first burst of time/space in the big bang. Those creases and rumples led
>to
>the irregular distribution of galaxies, galaxies spread in irregular
>bubble-like interlaces. How do CA models and math generate these
>irregularities?
Good question! First, let me say a few words about Nils Basse and his
speculation.
Basse (meaning 'wild boar' in old Danish) is being a bit wild here in his
speculation,
IMO. A 31 year old physicist from the Niels Bohr Institute of the
University of Copenhagen,
he is now a postdoctoral associate at MIT and will return soon to Denmark.
He is an experimentalist,
and a good one, studying turbulence in fusion plasmas using optical
techniques; primarily reflectometry. His findings are largely
experimental, and his mathematics is modest.
The math he is using in that paper relates mostly to mundane curve-fitting
of experimental data.
He observes that exponential fit of certain data is common to both fusion
plasmas and
expanding galaxies. This is nice, but far from giving any sort of
mathematical description
of underlying mechanisms. You may read the entire Basse's letter to
Physics Letters A
via the following link: http://www.npb.dk/pub/basse_pla_2005.pdf
That paper has been available online since late April, but will be published
formally dated
June 13, 2005.
>Or, to put this in Bloomian terms, what, aside from your CA separators, are
>the diversity generators that make things ragged? Is there a rule
>underlying
>what would seem at first glance to be messy, mussed, and irregular?
I don't know of any such rule.
>
>Wolfram's CA systems can generate what looks like chaos from simple rules.
>Meaning that simple CA-style rules may underlie even the seemingly random.
>But does your CA system do this, too? And does the math of Basse do it?
My CA systems certainly generate a great deal of complexity. It doesn't
particularly show in the simplest case of an initial single pixel (as in the
Steganogramic paper). There things remain symmetrical and generally
regular.
But, start instead with a cluster of a few pixel, say a string such as
'BLOOM',
and you'll immediately get significant complexity. See the few first steps
here: (following may get scrambled in transmission, but you'll get the
gist of it --
we are doing "recursive tetracoding" on the initial string 'BLOOM') -->
B L O O M
O O [ ] O
] [ ] O O O [
] OOO [ = ] O [
etc.
The reason for the above emergent complexity is that each individuall letter
(pixel)
attempts to expand exactly like the one described in the Steganogramic
paper.
But there are mutual interferences and the resulting patterns are
accommodations
(or coordination) of the individual patterns. The complexity is a compound
result
(and you'd never know it unless you understood the underlying patterns and
tendencies).
This, btw, suggests that the visible effects of the big bang are compound
effects
of a cluster of multiple big bangs and NOT a single event.
As to Basse's work, he works with fusion plasma systems such as those that
are supposed
to have occurred some 300000 years into the big bang process (at some 3000 K
degrees).
He suggests to do similar work on earlier stages where quark-gluon plasmas
first develop,
but has at present no clue as to how to go about it experimentally. In his
own words,
from the Discussion section:
"The fact that density fluctuations on small (fusion plasmas) and
large (galaxies) scales can be described by an exponential function
might indicate that plasma turbulence at early times has been expanded
to cosmological proportions. A natural consequence of that thought would be
to investigate fluctuations in quark-gluon plasmas (QGPs) corresponding to
even
earlier times. However, experimental techniques to do this are not
sufficiently developed at the moment due to the extreme nature of QGPs."
And, of course, he has no mathematics to do this either.
Note also the quote from the Conclusion section:
"The cross-disciplinary work presented here is hopefully just the beginning
of an interesting path that can benefit both fields. As a first step, we
will expand our studies to encompass a wider range of scales, both for
fusion plasmas and galaxy measurements."
So, all in all, Basse's conjecture is both encouraging and disappointing.
It
is encouraging in that it predicts similarity at many scales, from QGPs to
galaxies -- something
that you have been thinking about for some time now. It is disappointing
for lack
of mathematical depth and disregard of deep/underlying processes.
>
>One last question. CA systems are the gift of a technological tool--the
>computer. What new metaphoric systems, what new forms of understanding,
>may
>emerge from technologies that do not yet exist?
Very hard to project... because we don't know that which doesn't yet
exists...
Historically, we have been able to draw on metaphors (with mixed success)
derived from
mythology, religious theories and beliefs, philosophies, etc. I suppose
that nanotechnologies
relating to microbiological systems would be loaded with new metaphors. I
also think
that deep down therein the metaphor of distinction-making CA-like processes
will eventually
be found lurking... -- Joel
>Howard
>
>In a message dated 6/10/2005 9:50:59 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
>isaacsonj at hotmail.com writes:
>
>Yes, Howard, we are talking about same/similar stuff. I was surprised
>to
>see Nils Basse's
>suggestion of mini-big-bangs... especially since I have been talking
>about
>that possibility
>for some time now... albeit from a different perspective.
>
>My perspective is tied to CA-like processes that are anchored in
>perception.
>The self-similarity
>at all scales of those Ur-Patterns is a reflection of the self-similarity
>of
>the underlying processes,
>effected recursively. Those underlying processes are CA-like and their
>basic rule is
>local distinction-making.
>
>The scheme is not quite mathematical in the ordinary sense, although it is
>processually
>well-defined and readily representable by ordinary computational
>processes.
>Many of the usual CA rules have some mathematical flavor. However, here
>we have the rule of distinction-making that is a natural process common in
>the biology of perception -- not necessarily thru formal mathematical
>means.
>
>I do agree that mathematics serves via metaphors vis-a-vis natural
>processes
>
>described by same,
>and that all we could expect is finding/adopting the best mathematical
>metaphor that
>may fit a particular natural phenomenon. My CA-like processes, while not
>strictly mathematical,
>serve the same purpose; i.e., are metaphors aimed at a sweeping capture
>of
>natural
>phenomena, from visual perception (and perception in general) to processes
>generating
>elementary particles, and big bang-like scenarios, and many things in
>between...
>
>Btw, I corresponded with Noam Chomsky in 1972 about those CA... but it
>has
>been
>obviously premature... he has been very polite but professed to not
>"understand
>the import" of these things. Nevertheless, I did adopt his notions of
>surface
>and deep structures and incorporated those into the patent application in
>1975.
>
>-- Joel
>
>
>
> >From: HowlBloom at aol.com
> >To: isaacsonj at hotmail.com
> >CC: paleopsych at paleopsych.org
> >Subject: Re: Big bang in mm sizes
> >Date: Fri, 10 Jun 2005 01:03:14 EDT
> >
> >
> >
> >As always, we are on the same wavelength, Joel. This article has Ur
> >Patterns written all over it--patterns that show up on multiple level of
> >emergence,
> >patterns that metaphors can capture.
> >
> >Why are these patterns so easily graspable by metaphor? Because
>metaphor
> >is
> >one concrete example of an Ur Pattern that repeats itself on multiple
> >levels. Meaning that metaphor is not just a literary trick. It is a
>way
> >of
> >capturing something deep and repetitive in this cosmos--a deep
>structure
> >if you
> >prefer to use Noam Chomsky's vocabulary.
> >
> >Not all metaphors are valid. But when you find the right one for the
> >phenomenon you're watching, you've hit gold.
> >
> >And never forget, math is metaphor in disguise. Onward--Howard
> >
> >In a message dated 6/9/2005 2:23:17 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
> >isaacsonj at hotmail.com writes:
> >
> >
> >
> >Plasma in reactors echoes distribution of galaxies
> >11 June 2005
> >NewScientist.com news service
> >Mark Anderson
> >
> >NUCLEAR fusion reactors could be used to study what the universe was
>like
> >just after the big bang. So claims a physicist who noticed that the
>plasma
> >created inside these reactors is distributed in a strikingly similar
>way
> >to
> >galaxies in today's universe.
> >
> >Nils Basse of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology does not
>normally
> >concern himself with events in the early universe. Instead, he studies
> >turbulence in the plasma created in fusion reactors. But when he
>chanced
> >upon the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) - which is mapping a quarter
>of
> >the
> >sky in detail - he noticed something uncanny. The mathematical equation
> >governing the distribution of voids and galaxies looks remarkably like
>the
> >one describing the millimetre-sized knots and clots of plasma in the
> >Wendelstein 7-AS "stellarator" fusion reactor in Garching, Germany
> >(Physics
> >Letters A, vol 340, p 456).
> >
> >Basse argues that the distribution of galaxies today could be the
>result
> >of
> >variations in the density of plasma after the big bang. "I think it all
> >comes from turbulence in the very early universe," he says. "[The
>galaxy
> >distribution today] is just a blow-up of what was going on at that
>point."
> >This suggests that stellarator reactors could serve as models of the
>early
> >universe.
> >
> >
> >But cosmologist Daniel Eisenstein of the University of Arizona in
>Tucson,
> >who works on the SDSS project, disagrees. He points out that the kind
>of
> >plasma that Basse describes existed only for the first millisecond
>after
> >the
> >big bang, and that epoch ended too soon to influence the large scale
> >structure of today's universe. Eisenstein calculates that the largest
> >structure that could have arisen because of any such primordial density
> >variations would only stretch a few light years across today.
> >
> >“The plasma created inside fusion reactors is distributed in a
> >strikingly
> >similar way to galaxies in today's universeâ€Eisenstein also says that
> >Basse's claim is difficult to reconcile with the results of the
>Wilkinson
> >Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), which has mapped the distribution of
> >the
> >oldest light in the universe dating back to some 380,000 years after
>the
> >big
> >bang. This "baby picture" of the cosmos yields markedly different
>density
> >fluctuations to the SDSS map. "I don't see any way to get turbulence
>into
> >this mix without throwing out all the [WMAP] data," Eisenstein says.
>"And
> >that's very powerful data."
> >
> >From issue 2503 of New Scientist magazine, 11 June 2005, page 8
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >----------
> >Howard Bloom
> >Author of The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the
>Forces
> >of
> >History and Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind From The Big Bang
>to
> >the
> >21st Century
> >Recent Visiting Scholar-Graduate Psychology Department, New York
> >University;
> >Core Faculty Member, The Graduate Institute
> >www.howardbloom.net
> >www.bigbangtango.net
> >Founder: International Paleopsychology Project; founding board member:
> >Epic
> >of Evolution Society; founding board member, The Darwin Project;
>founder:
> >The
> >Big Bang Tango Media Lab; member: New York Academy of Sciences,
>American
> >Association for the Advancement of Science, American Psychological
> >Society,
> >Academy of Political Science, Human Behavior and Evolution Society,
> >International
> >Society for Human Ethology; advisory board member: Youthactivism.org;
> >executive editor -- New Paradigm book series.
> >For information on The International Paleopsychology Project, see:
> >www.paleopsych.org
> >for two chapters from
> >The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of
>History,
> >see www.howardbloom.net/lucifer
> >For information on Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the
>Big
> >Bang to the 21st Century, see www.howardbloom.net
> >
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>paleopsych mailing list
>paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>
>
>
>
>
>----------
>Howard Bloom
>Author of The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the Forces
>of
>History and Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind From The Big Bang to
>the
>21st Century
>Recent Visiting Scholar-Graduate Psychology Department, New York
>University;
>Core Faculty Member, The Graduate Institute
>www.howardbloom.net
>www.bigbangtango.net
>Founder: International Paleopsychology Project; founding board member:
>Epic
>of Evolution Society; founding board member, The Darwin Project; founder:
>The
>Big Bang Tango Media Lab; member: New York Academy of Sciences, American
>Association for the Advancement of Science, American Psychological
>Society,
>Academy of Political Science, Human Behavior and Evolution Society,
>International
>Society for Human Ethology; advisory board member: Youthactivism.org;
>executive editor -- New Paradigm book series.
>For information on The International Paleopsychology Project, see:
>www.paleopsych.org
>for two chapters from
>The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of History,
>see www.howardbloom.net/lucifer
>For information on Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big
>Bang to the 21st Century, see www.howardbloom.net
>
>_______________________________________________
>paleopsych mailing list
>paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>From: HowlBloom at aol.com
>Reply-To: The new improved paleopsych list <paleopsych at paleopsych.org>
>To: paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>Subject: Re: [Paleopsych] Re: Big bang in mm sizes
>Date: Fri, 10 Jun 2005 23:23:05 EDT
>
>
>
>Joel--
>
>Your CA approach, based on the building of barriers, distinctions,
>boundaries,membranes, and other separators is extremely helpful. The CA
>approach in
>general has been a useful tool for understanding self-organization of
>extraordinary complexity based on very, very simple rules.
>
>But I have a question. The whorls Basse talks about in his mini-big-bangs
>are apparently similar to the irregular whorls that Smoot claims rumpled
>the
>first burst of time/space in the big bang. Those creases and rumples led
>to
>the irregular distribution of galaxies, galaxies spread in irregular
>bubble-like interlaces. How do CA models and math generate these
>irregularities?
Good question! First, let me say a few words about Nils Basse and his
speculation.
Basse (meaning 'wild boar' in old Danish) is being a bit wild here in his
speculation,
IMO. A 31 year old physicist from the Nils Bohr Institute of the
University of Copenhagen,
he is now visiting at MIT and will return soon to Denmark. He is an
experimentalist,
and a good one, studying turbulence in plasmas using optical techniques;
primarily
>Or, to put this in Bloomian terms, what, aside from your CA separators, are
>the diversity generators that make things ragged? Is there a rule
>underlying
>what would seem at first glance to be messy, mussed, and irregular?
>
>Wolfram's CA systems can generate what looks like chaos from simple rules.
>Meaning that simple CA-style rules may underlie even the seemingly random.
>But does your CA system do this, too? And does the math of Basse do it?
>
>One last question. CA systems are the gift of a technological tool--the
>computer. What new metaphoric systems, what new forms of understanding,
>may
>emerge from technologies that do not yet exist? Howard
>
>In a message dated 6/10/2005 9:50:59 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
>isaacsonj at hotmail.com writes:
>
>Yes, Howard, we are talking about same/similar stuff. I was surprised
>to
>see Nils Basse's
>suggestion of mini-big-bangs... especially since I have been talking
>about
>that possibility
>for some time now... albeit from a different perspective.
>
>My perspective is tied to CA-like processes that are anchored in
>perception.
>The self-similarity
>at all scales of those Ur-Patterns is a reflection of the self-similarity
>of
>the underlying processes,
>effected recursively. Those underlying processes are CA-like and their
>basic rule is
>local distinction-making.
>
>The scheme is not quite mathematical in the ordinary sense, although it is
>processually
>well-defined and readily representable by ordinary computational
>processes.
>Many of the usual CA rules have some mathematical flavor. However, here
>we have the rule of distinction-making that is a natural process common in
>the biology of perception -- not necessarily thru formal mathematical
>means.
>
>I do agree that mathematics serves via metaphors vis-a-vis natural
>processes
>
>described by same,
>and that all we could expect is finding/adopting the best mathematical
>metaphor that
>may fit a particular natural phenomenon. My CA-like processes, while not
>strictly mathematical,
>serve the same purpose; i.e., are metaphors aimed at a sweeping capture
>of
>natural
>phenomena, from visual perception (and perception in general) to processes
>generating
>elementary particles, and big bang-like scenarios, and many things in
>between...
>
>Btw, I corresponded with Noam Chomsky in 1972 about those CA... but it
>has
>been
>obviously premature... he has been very polite but professed to not
>"understand
>the import" of these things. Nevertheless, I did adopt his notions of
>surface
>and deep structures and incorporated those into the patent application in
>1975.
>
>-- Joel
>
>
>
> >From: HowlBloom at aol.com
> >To: isaacsonj at hotmail.com
> >CC: paleopsych at paleopsych.org
> >Subject: Re: Big bang in mm sizes
> >Date: Fri, 10 Jun 2005 01:03:14 EDT
> >
> >
> >
> >As always, we are on the same wavelength, Joel. This article has Ur
> >Patterns written all over it--patterns that show up on multiple level of
> >emergence,
> >patterns that metaphors can capture.
> >
> >Why are these patterns so easily graspable by metaphor? Because
>metaphor
> >is
> >one concrete example of an Ur Pattern that repeats itself on multiple
> >levels. Meaning that metaphor is not just a literary trick. It is a
>way
> >of
> >capturing something deep and repetitive in this cosmos--a deep
>structure
> >if you
> >prefer to use Noam Chomsky's vocabulary.
> >
> >Not all metaphors are valid. But when you find the right one for the
> >phenomenon you're watching, you've hit gold.
> >
> >And never forget, math is metaphor in disguise. Onward--Howard
> >
> >In a message dated 6/9/2005 2:23:17 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
> >isaacsonj at hotmail.com writes:
> >
> >
> >
> >Plasma in reactors echoes distribution of galaxies
> >11 June 2005
> >NewScientist.com news service
> >Mark Anderson
> >
> >NUCLEAR fusion reactors could be used to study what the universe was
>like
> >just after the big bang. So claims a physicist who noticed that the
>plasma
> >created inside these reactors is distributed in a strikingly similar
>way
> >to
> >galaxies in today's universe.
> >
> >Nils Basse of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology does not
>normally
> >concern himself with events in the early universe. Instead, he studies
> >turbulence in the plasma created in fusion reactors. But when he
>chanced
> >upon the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) - which is mapping a quarter
>of
> >the
> >sky in detail - he noticed something uncanny. The mathematical equation
> >governing the distribution of voids and galaxies looks remarkably like
>the
> >one describing the millimetre-sized knots and clots of plasma in the
> >Wendelstein 7-AS "stellarator" fusion reactor in Garching, Germany
> >(Physics
> >Letters A, vol 340, p 456).
> >
> >Basse argues that the distribution of galaxies today could be the
>result
> >of
> >variations in the density of plasma after the big bang. "I think it all
> >comes from turbulence in the very early universe," he says. "[The
>galaxy
> >distribution today] is just a blow-up of what was going on at that
>point."
> >This suggests that stellarator reactors could serve as models of the
>early
> >universe.
> >
> >
> >But cosmologist Daniel Eisenstein of the University of Arizona in
>Tucson,
> >who works on the SDSS project, disagrees. He points out that the kind
>of
> >plasma that Basse describes existed only for the first millisecond
>after
> >the
> >big bang, and that epoch ended too soon to influence the large scale
> >structure of today's universe. Eisenstein calculates that the largest
> >structure that could have arisen because of any such primordial density
> >variations would only stretch a few light years across today.
> >
> >“The plasma created inside fusion reactors is distributed in a
> >strikingly
> >similar way to galaxies in today's universeâ€Eisenstein also says that
> >Basse's claim is difficult to reconcile with the results of the
>Wilkinson
> >Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), which has mapped the distribution of
> >the
> >oldest light in the universe dating back to some 380,000 years after
>the
> >big
> >bang. This "baby picture" of the cosmos yields markedly different
>density
> >fluctuations to the SDSS map. "I don't see any way to get turbulence
>into
> >this mix without throwing out all the [WMAP] data," Eisenstein says.
>"And
> >that's very powerful data."
> >
> >From issue 2503 of New Scientist magazine, 11 June 2005, page 8
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >----------
> >Howard Bloom
> >Author of The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the
>Forces
> >of
> >History and Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind From The Big Bang
>to
> >the
> >21st Century
> >Recent Visiting Scholar-Graduate Psychology Department, New York
> >University;
> >Core Faculty Member, The Graduate Institute
> >www.howardbloom.net
> >www.bigbangtango.net
> >Founder: International Paleopsychology Project; founding board member:
> >Epic
> >of Evolution Society; founding board member, The Darwin Project;
>founder:
> >The
> >Big Bang Tango Media Lab; member: New York Academy of Sciences,
>American
> >Association for the Advancement of Science, American Psychological
> >Society,
> >Academy of Political Science, Human Behavior and Evolution Society,
> >International
> >Society for Human Ethology; advisory board member: Youthactivism.org;
> >executive editor -- New Paradigm book series.
> >For information on The International Paleopsychology Project, see:
> >www.paleopsych.org
> >for two chapters from
> >The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of
>History,
> >see www.howardbloom.net/lucifer
> >For information on Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the
>Big
> >Bang to the 21st Century, see www.howardbloom.net
> >
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>paleopsych mailing list
>paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>
>
>
>
>
>----------
>Howard Bloom
>Author of The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the Forces
>of
>History and Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind From The Big Bang to
>the
>21st Century
>Recent Visiting Scholar-Graduate Psychology Department, New York
>University;
>Core Faculty Member, The Graduate Institute
>www.howardbloom.net
>www.bigbangtango.net
>Founder: International Paleopsychology Project; founding board member:
>Epic
>of Evolution Society; founding board member, The Darwin Project; founder:
>The
>Big Bang Tango Media Lab; member: New York Academy of Sciences, American
>Association for the Advancement of Science, American Psychological
>Society,
>Academy of Political Science, Human Behavior and Evolution Society,
>International
>Society for Human Ethology; advisory board member: Youthactivism.org;
>executive editor -- New Paradigm book series.
>For information on The International Paleopsychology Project, see:
>www.paleopsych.org
>for two chapters from
>The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of History,
>see www.howardbloom.net/lucifer
>For information on Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big
>Bang to the 21st Century, see www.howardbloom.net
>
>_______________________________________________
>paleopsych mailing list
>paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>From: HowlBloom at aol.com
>
>Joel--
>
>Your CA approach, based on the building of barriers, distinctions,
>boundaries,membranes, and other separators is extremely helpful. The CA
>approach in
>general has been a useful tool for understanding self-organization of
>extraordinary complexity based on very, very simple rules.
>
>But I have a question. The whorls Basse talks about in his mini-big-bangs
>are apparently similar to the irregular whorls that Smoot claims rumpled
>the
>first burst of time/space in the big bang. Those creases and rumples led
>to
>the irregular distribution of galaxies, galaxies spread in irregular
>bubble-like interlaces. How do CA models and math generate these
>irregularities?
Good question! First, let me say a few words about Nils Basse and his
speculation.
Basse (meaning 'wild boar' in old Danish) is being a bit wild here in his
speculation,
IMO. A 31 year old physicist from the Niels Bohr Institute of the
University of Copenhagen,
he is now a postdoctoral associate at MIT and will return soon to Denmark.
He is an experimentalist,
and a good one, studying turbulence in plasmas using optical techniques;
primarily reflectometry.
His findings are largely experimental, and his mathematics is modest.
The math he is using in that paper relates mostly to curve-fitting of
experimental data.
He observes that.....
>Or, to put this in Bloomian terms, what, aside from your CA separators, are
>the diversity generators that make things ragged? Is there a rule
>underlying
>what would seem at first glance to be messy, mussed, and irregular?
>
>Wolfram's CA systems can generate what looks like chaos from simple rules.
>Meaning that simple CA-style rules may underlie even the seemingly random.
>But does your CA system do this, too? And does the math of Basse do it?
>
>One last question. CA systems are the gift of a technological tool--the
>computer. What new metaphoric systems, what new forms of understanding,
>may
>emerge from technologies that do not yet exist?
Very hard to project... because we don't know that which doesn't yet
exists...
Historically, we have been able to draw on metaphors (with mixed success)
derived from
mythology, religious theories and beliefs, philosophies, etc. I suppose
that nanotechnologies
relating to microbiological systems would be loaded with new metaphors. I
also think
that down deep therein the metaphor of distinction-making CA-like processes
will be found
lurking... -- Joel
>Howard
>
>In a message dated 6/10/2005 9:50:59 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
>isaacsonj at hotmail.com writes:
>
>Yes, Howard, we are talking about same/similar stuff. I was surprised
>to
>see Nils Basse's
>suggestion of mini-big-bangs... especially since I have been talking
>about
>that possibility
>for some time now... albeit from a different perspective.
>
>My perspective is tied to CA-like processes that are anchored in
>perception.
>The self-similarity
>at all scales of those Ur-Patterns is a reflection of the self-similarity
>of
>the underlying processes,
>effected recursively. Those underlying processes are CA-like and their
>basic rule is
>local distinction-making.
>
>The scheme is not quite mathematical in the ordinary sense, although it is
>processually
>well-defined and readily representable by ordinary computational
>processes.
>Many of the usual CA rules have some mathematical flavor. However, here
>we have the rule of distinction-making that is a natural process common in
>the biology of perception -- not necessarily thru formal mathematical
>means.
>
>I do agree that mathematics serves via metaphors vis-a-vis natural
>processes
>
>described by same,
>and that all we could expect is finding/adopting the best mathematical
>metaphor that
>may fit a particular natural phenomenon. My CA-like processes, while not
>strictly mathematical,
>serve the same purpose; i.e., are metaphors aimed at a sweeping capture
>of
>natural
>phenomena, from visual perception (and perception in general) to processes
>generating
>elementary particles, and big bang-like scenarios, and many things in
>between...
>
>Btw, I corresponded with Noam Chomsky in 1972 about those CA... but it
>has
>been
>obviously premature... he has been very polite but professed to not
>"understand
>the import" of these things. Nevertheless, I did adopt his notions of
>surface
>and deep structures and incorporated those into the patent application in
>1975.
>
>-- Joel
>
>
>
> >From: HowlBloom at aol.com
> >To: isaacsonj at hotmail.com
> >CC: paleopsych at paleopsych.org
> >Subject: Re: Big bang in mm sizes
> >Date: Fri, 10 Jun 2005 01:03:14 EDT
> >
> >
> >
> >As always, we are on the same wavelength, Joel. This article has Ur
> >Patterns written all over it--patterns that show up on multiple level of
> >emergence,
> >patterns that metaphors can capture.
> >
> >Why are these patterns so easily graspable by metaphor? Because
>metaphor
> >is
> >one concrete example of an Ur Pattern that repeats itself on multiple
> >levels. Meaning that metaphor is not just a literary trick. It is a
>way
> >of
> >capturing something deep and repetitive in this cosmos--a deep
>structure
> >if you
> >prefer to use Noam Chomsky's vocabulary.
> >
> >Not all metaphors are valid. But when you find the right one for the
> >phenomenon you're watching, you've hit gold.
> >
> >And never forget, math is metaphor in disguise. Onward--Howard
> >
> >In a message dated 6/9/2005 2:23:17 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
> >isaacsonj at hotmail.com writes:
> >
> >
> >
> >Plasma in reactors echoes distribution of galaxies
> >11 June 2005
> >NewScientist.com news service
> >Mark Anderson
> >
> >NUCLEAR fusion reactors could be used to study what the universe was
>like
> >just after the big bang. So claims a physicist who noticed that the
>plasma
> >created inside these reactors is distributed in a strikingly similar
>way
> >to
> >galaxies in today's universe.
> >
> >Nils Basse of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology does not
>normally
> >concern himself with events in the early universe. Instead, he studies
> >turbulence in the plasma created in fusion reactors. But when he
>chanced
> >upon the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) - which is mapping a quarter
>of
> >the
> >sky in detail - he noticed something uncanny. The mathematical equation
> >governing the distribution of voids and galaxies looks remarkably like
>the
> >one describing the millimetre-sized knots and clots of plasma in the
> >Wendelstein 7-AS "stellarator" fusion reactor in Garching, Germany
> >(Physics
> >Letters A, vol 340, p 456).
> >
> >Basse argues that the distribution of galaxies today could be the
>result
> >of
> >variations in the density of plasma after the big bang. "I think it all
> >comes from turbulence in the very early universe," he says. "[The
>galaxy
> >distribution today] is just a blow-up of what was going on at that
>point."
> >This suggests that stellarator reactors could serve as models of the
>early
> >universe.
> >
> >
> >But cosmologist Daniel Eisenstein of the University of Arizona in
>Tucson,
> >who works on the SDSS project, disagrees. He points out that the kind
>of
> >plasma that Basse describes existed only for the first millisecond
>after
> >the
> >big bang, and that epoch ended too soon to influence the large scale
> >structure of today's universe. Eisenstein calculates that the largest
> >structure that could have arisen because of any such primordial density
> >variations would only stretch a few light years across today.
> >
> >“The plasma created inside fusion reactors is distributed in a
> >strikingly
> >similar way to galaxies in today's universeâ€Eisenstein also says that
> >Basse's claim is difficult to reconcile with the results of the
>Wilkinson
> >Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), which has mapped the distribution of
> >the
> >oldest light in the universe dating back to some 380,000 years after
>the
> >big
> >bang. This "baby picture" of the cosmos yields markedly different
>density
> >fluctuations to the SDSS map. "I don't see any way to get turbulence
>into
> >this mix without throwing out all the [WMAP] data," Eisenstein says.
>"And
> >that's very powerful data."
> >
> >From issue 2503 of New Scientist magazine, 11 June 2005, page 8
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >----------
> >Howard Bloom
> >Author of The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the
>Forces
> >of
> >History and Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind From The Big Bang
>to
> >the
> >21st Century
> >Recent Visiting Scholar-Graduate Psychology Department, New York
> >University;
> >Core Faculty Member, The Graduate Institute
> >www.howardbloom.net
> >www.bigbangtango.net
> >Founder: International Paleopsychology Project; founding board member:
> >Epic
> >of Evolution Society; founding board member, The Darwin Project;
>founder:
> >The
> >Big Bang Tango Media Lab; member: New York Academy of Sciences,
>American
> >Association for the Advancement of Science, American Psychological
> >Society,
> >Academy of Political Science, Human Behavior and Evolution Society,
> >International
> >Society for Human Ethology; advisory board member: Youthactivism.org;
> >executive editor -- New Paradigm book series.
> >For information on The International Paleopsychology Project, see:
> >www.paleopsych.org
> >for two chapters from
> >The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of
>History,
> >see www.howardbloom.net/lucifer
> >For information on Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the
>Big
> >Bang to the 21st Century, see www.howardbloom.net
> >
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>paleopsych mailing list
>paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>
>
>
>
>
>----------
>Howard Bloom
>Author of The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the Forces
>of
>History and Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind From The Big Bang to
>the
>21st Century
>Recent Visiting Scholar-Graduate Psychology Department, New York
>University;
>Core Faculty Member, The Graduate Institute
>www.howardbloom.net
>www.bigbangtango.net
>Founder: International Paleopsychology Project; founding board member:
>Epic
>of Evolution Society; founding board member, The Darwin Project; founder:
>The
>Big Bang Tango Media Lab; member: New York Academy of Sciences, American
>Association for the Advancement of Science, American Psychological
>Society,
>Academy of Political Science, Human Behavior and Evolution Society,
>International
>Society for Human Ethology; advisory board member: Youthactivism.org;
>executive editor -- New Paradigm book series.
>For information on The International Paleopsychology Project, see:
>www.paleopsych.org
>for two chapters from
>The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of History,
>see www.howardbloom.net/lucifer
>For information on Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big
>Bang to the 21st Century, see www.howardbloom.net
>
>_______________________________________________
>paleopsych mailing list
>paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>From: HowlBloom at aol.com
>Reply-To: The new improved paleopsych list <paleopsych at paleopsych.org>
>To: paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>Subject: Re: [Paleopsych] Re: Big bang in mm sizes
>Date: Fri, 10 Jun 2005 23:23:05 EDT
>
>
>
>Joel--
>
>Your CA approach, based on the building of barriers, distinctions,
>boundaries,membranes, and other separators is extremely helpful. The CA
>approach in
>general has been a useful tool for understanding self-organization of
>extraordinary complexity based on very, very simple rules.
>
>But I have a question. The whorls Basse talks about in his mini-big-bangs
>are apparently similar to the irregular whorls that Smoot claims rumpled
>the
>first burst of time/space in the big bang. Those creases and rumples led
>to
>the irregular distribution of galaxies, galaxies spread in irregular
>bubble-like interlaces. How do CA models and math generate these
>irregularities?
Good question! First, let me say a few words about Nils Basse and his
speculation.
Basse (meaning 'wild boar' in old Danish) is being a bit wild here in his
speculation,
IMO. A 31 year old physicist from the Nils Bohr Institute of the
University of Copenhagen,
he is now visiting at MIT and will return soon to Denmark. He is an
experimentalist,
and a good one, studying turbulence in plasmas using optical techniques;
primarily
>Or, to put this in Bloomian terms, what, aside from your CA separators, are
>the diversity generators that make things ragged? Is there a rule
>underlying
>what would seem at first glance to be messy, mussed, and irregular?
>
>Wolfram's CA systems can generate what looks like chaos from simple rules.
>Meaning that simple CA-style rules may underlie even the seemingly random.
>But does your CA system do this, too? And does the math of Basse do it?
>
>One last question. CA systems are the gift of a technological tool--the
>computer. What new metaphoric systems, what new forms of understanding,
>may
>emerge from technologies that do not yet exist? Howard
>
>In a message dated 6/10/2005 9:50:59 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
>isaacsonj at hotmail.com writes:
>
>Yes, Howard, we are talking about same/similar stuff. I was surprised
>to
>see Nils Basse's
>suggestion of mini-big-bangs... especially since I have been talking
>about
>that possibility
>for some time now... albeit from a different perspective.
>
>My perspective is tied to CA-like processes that are anchored in
>perception.
>The self-similarity
>at all scales of those Ur-Patterns is a reflection of the self-similarity
>of
>the underlying processes,
>effected recursively. Those underlying processes are CA-like and their
>basic rule is
>local distinction-making.
>
>The scheme is not quite mathematical in the ordinary sense, although it is
>processually
>well-defined and readily representable by ordinary computational
>processes.
>Many of the usual CA rules have some mathematical flavor. However, here
>we have the rule of distinction-making that is a natural process common in
>the biology of perception -- not necessarily thru formal mathematical
>means.
>
>I do agree that mathematics serves via metaphors vis-a-vis natural
>processes
>
>described by same,
>and that all we could expect is finding/adopting the best mathematical
>metaphor that
>may fit a particular natural phenomenon. My CA-like processes, while not
>strictly mathematical,
>serve the same purpose; i.e., are metaphors aimed at a sweeping capture
>of
>natural
>phenomena, from visual perception (and perception in general) to processes
>generating
>elementary particles, and big bang-like scenarios, and many things in
>between...
>
>Btw, I corresponded with Noam Chomsky in 1972 about those CA... but it
>has
>been
>obviously premature... he has been very polite but professed to not
>"understand
>the import" of these things. Nevertheless, I did adopt his notions of
>surface
>and deep structures and incorporated those into the patent application in
>1975.
>
>-- Joel
>
>
>
> >From: HowlBloom at aol.com
> >To: isaacsonj at hotmail.com
> >CC: paleopsych at paleopsych.org
> >Subject: Re: Big bang in mm sizes
> >Date: Fri, 10 Jun 2005 01:03:14 EDT
> >
> >
> >
> >As always, we are on the same wavelength, Joel. This article has Ur
> >Patterns written all over it--patterns that show up on multiple level of
> >emergence,
> >patterns that metaphors can capture.
> >
> >Why are these patterns so easily graspable by metaphor? Because
>metaphor
> >is
> >one concrete example of an Ur Pattern that repeats itself on multiple
> >levels. Meaning that metaphor is not just a literary trick. It is a
>way
> >of
> >capturing something deep and repetitive in this cosmos--a deep
>structure
> >if you
> >prefer to use Noam Chomsky's vocabulary.
> >
> >Not all metaphors are valid. But when you find the right one for the
> >phenomenon you're watching, you've hit gold.
> >
> >And never forget, math is metaphor in disguise. Onward--Howard
> >
> >In a message dated 6/9/2005 2:23:17 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
> >isaacsonj at hotmail.com writes:
> >
> >
> >
> >Plasma in reactors echoes distribution of galaxies
> >11 June 2005
> >NewScientist.com news service
> >Mark Anderson
> >
> >NUCLEAR fusion reactors could be used to study what the universe was
>like
> >just after the big bang. So claims a physicist who noticed that the
>plasma
> >created inside these reactors is distributed in a strikingly similar
>way
> >to
> >galaxies in today's universe.
> >
> >Nils Basse of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology does not
>normally
> >concern himself with events in the early universe. Instead, he studies
> >turbulence in the plasma created in fusion reactors. But when he
>chanced
> >upon the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) - which is mapping a quarter
>of
> >the
> >sky in detail - he noticed something uncanny. The mathematical equation
> >governing the distribution of voids and galaxies looks remarkably like
>the
> >one describing the millimetre-sized knots and clots of plasma in the
> >Wendelstein 7-AS "stellarator" fusion reactor in Garching, Germany
> >(Physics
> >Letters A, vol 340, p 456).
> >
> >Basse argues that the distribution of galaxies today could be the
>result
> >of
> >variations in the density of plasma after the big bang. "I think it all
> >comes from turbulence in the very early universe," he says. "[The
>galaxy
> >distribution today] is just a blow-up of what was going on at that
>point."
> >This suggests that stellarator reactors could serve as models of the
>early
> >universe.
> >
> >
> >But cosmologist Daniel Eisenstein of the University of Arizona in
>Tucson,
> >who works on the SDSS project, disagrees. He points out that the kind
>of
> >plasma that Basse describes existed only for the first millisecond
>after
> >the
> >big bang, and that epoch ended too soon to influence the large scale
> >structure of today's universe. Eisenstein calculates that the largest
> >structure that could have arisen because of any such primordial density
> >variations would only stretch a few light years across today.
> >
> >“The plasma created inside fusion reactors is distributed in a
> >strikingly
> >similar way to galaxies in today's universeâ€Eisenstein also says that
> >Basse's claim is difficult to reconcile with the results of the
>Wilkinson
> >Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), which has mapped the distribution of
> >the
> >oldest light in the universe dating back to some 380,000 years after
>the
> >big
> >bang. This "baby picture" of the cosmos yields markedly different
>density
> >fluctuations to the SDSS map. "I don't see any way to get turbulence
>into
> >this mix without throwing out all the [WMAP] data," Eisenstein says.
>"And
> >that's very powerful data."
> >
> >From issue 2503 of New Scientist magazine, 11 June 2005, page 8
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >----------
> >Howard Bloom
> >Author of The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the
>Forces
> >of
> >History and Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind From The Big Bang
>to
> >the
> >21st Century
> >Recent Visiting Scholar-Graduate Psychology Department, New York
> >University;
> >Core Faculty Member, The Graduate Institute
> >www.howardbloom.net
> >www.bigbangtango.net
> >Founder: International Paleopsychology Project; founding board member:
> >Epic
> >of Evolution Society; founding board member, The Darwin Project;
>founder:
> >The
> >Big Bang Tango Media Lab; member: New York Academy of Sciences,
>American
> >Association for the Advancement of Science, American Psychological
> >Society,
> >Academy of Political Science, Human Behavior and Evolution Society,
> >International
> >Society for Human Ethology; advisory board member: Youthactivism.org;
> >executive editor -- New Paradigm book series.
> >For information on The International Paleopsychology Project, see:
> >www.paleopsych.org
> >for two chapters from
> >The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of
>History,
> >see www.howardbloom.net/lucifer
> >For information on Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the
>Big
> >Bang to the 21st Century, see www.howardbloom.net
> >
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>paleopsych mailing list
>paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
>
>
>
>
>
>----------
>Howard Bloom
>Author of The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the Forces
>of
>History and Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind From The Big Bang to
>the
>21st Century
>Recent Visiting Scholar-Graduate Psychology Department, New York
>University;
>Core Faculty Member, The Graduate Institute
>www.howardbloom.net
>www.bigbangtango.net
>Founder: International Paleopsychology Project; founding board member:
>Epic
>of Evolution Society; founding board member, The Darwin Project; founder:
>The
>Big Bang Tango Media Lab; member: New York Academy of Sciences, American
>Association for the Advancement of Science, American Psychological
>Society,
>Academy of Political Science, Human Behavior and Evolution Society,
>International
>Society for Human Ethology; advisory board member: Youthactivism.org;
>executive editor -- New Paradigm book series.
>For information on The International Paleopsychology Project, see:
>www.paleopsych.org
>for two chapters from
>The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of History,
>see www.howardbloom.net/lucifer
>For information on Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big
>Bang to the 21st Century, see www.howardbloom.net
>
>_______________________________________________
>paleopsych mailing list
>paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>http://lists.paleopsych.org/mailman/listinfo/paleopsych
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