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Raw Fish And Cold Water

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Posted by Paul R. Martin on April 21, 2002 05:09:55 UTC

Hi Dick,

23. Thanks for your response. I'm sorry for the balloon full of cold water but I'm glad I wasn't there to get the raw fish treatment.

24. One reason I stopped so abruptly is that if you didn't agree with my every step up to that point, I would be going off in left field if I continued. I take it as very good news that you were able to map everything I said into what you have been saying. That means that I didn't make a glaring error in my assumptions or guesses. That is very heartening.

25. Another reason I stopped so abruptly is that Ellen was waiting for me to go out to dinner (it is my birthday today). Say Hi to Diantha for both of us.

26. I knew that what I wrote would seem very convoluted, so that is why I numbered the paragraphs and the various items I discussed. I figured that if you printed it out and had a pen handy while you read it, you could keep the points I was making straight without trying to keep them in your head all at once. If you were able to do that, I admire your brain-power, but I am not surprised that it burst and fell apart.

27. If you agree with all my detailed points, then we can forget them and move on. I just wanted to make sure that I didn't mis-interpret something that would later invalidate any conclusions I came to.

28. You said that you expected some "deep succinct expression of the fundamental underlying issue". I thought I had done that in my paragraph 20 when I said: "If all known facts, as well as any set of hypothetical facts which make up a true explanation of those known facts, can be represented as a set of numbers then, you have shown a method of creating such a set of hypothetical facts, and moreover, you have proved that the complete set of facts comprising the known facts and any such set of hypothetical facts must obey your "fundamental" equation."

29. I can see how that doesn't qualify as "succinct", but I would like to know what part of the deep underlying issue it misses. That is what I would like to grasp. It is not so important to me that I be able to state it succinctly.

30. I did read your recent dialog with Aurino (I can't remember if I read them before or after I composed my post) and there is nothing in them that I disagree with or don't think I understand. In fact, you admitted some things that confirm my ideas about your discovery:

31. ***I am of the sincere opinion that everything cannot be explained. No matter how deep an explanation goes, something is in effect being assumed. That is an intellectual dilemma and is indeed my definition of god: the Great Original Dilemma!***

32. ***...I am aware of something I can neither explain nor communicate! At the moment, I would say that the fact that I am aware is a specific example of such a dilemma. When I use the word "aware" I mean something very specific; however, I can conceive of no way of communicating the fact that I am aware to anyone.***

33. What you have said is that there must be something that cannot be explained, and one of those things is your awareness. Since your awareness cannot be explained, it cannot be described as a set of numbers. So it is not part of "Something A" which is all knowable information. It also can't be part of "Something B" which is the explanation of "Something A" because the explanation must also be a set of numbers.

34. From this, it is reasonable to conclude that your awareness is part of the "mental machinations which constitute the creation of hypothetical "facts" (what [you] have called "unknowable" data: creations of [your] mind, the truth of which explain everything)."

35. These "mental machinations" are what I identified as item a) in my post, and in my paragraph 14., I guessed that this item could not be expressed as a set of numbers. Since you implied that you agreed with my discussion up to paragraph 21, I assume you agree that the conscious thought process which you go through to develop the explanation embodied in the unknowable data is not part of, nor contained in, the set of numbers which comprises the knowable data or the unknowable data.

36. Now, let me try to state as succinctly and accurately as I can, what I think your discovery is all about. (Of course I'm kidding about the "succinctly".)

37. If we are to understand our universe, then we must be in a position to be able to explain it.
38. In order to explain it, the explanation must be expressible as a set of numbers.
39. We are limited in what we can understand about our universe by what we can know about it.
40. Anything we can know about our universe can be expressed as a set of numbers.
41. The set of numbers representing what we can know about our universe taken together with the set of numbers representing any consistent explanation of it, must obey your fundamental equation.
42. This combined set of numbers must of necessity behave according to the consistent subset of physics.
43. There are many possible explanations for the same universe.
44. All possible explanations which are internally consistent must also obey that consistent subset of physics.
45. The consciousness which is involved in the derivation of any of these explanations, or is involved in the communication of one of these explanations, either as a sender or a receiver, is outside of the combined set of numbers (i.e. the knowable and the unknowable data) and is part of the Great Original Dilemma for which there can be no explanation.

46. My brain is now too tired to think. I hope my stopping at this point does not douse you with another bucket of cold water. I hope that at least I have given you some specifics which you can either confirm or deny.

Warm regards,

Paul

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