Posted on 11/30/2004 6:21:11 PM PST by betty boop
LOL. Yes, they drink from flagons brought by wenches, but somehow, I don't think ours will be! You, good St. shall be in a renowned chair, methinks, quite near the decanter and the fireside
I don't define intuitionism. Brouwer came up with the idea about 100 years ago and it has been extended lately. There's a book by Heyting with a good discussion.
I'm not sure these are exclusive. We do attempt to give definitions that reflect what we think the world is.
On the largest scale, we see the evidence of harmonics in the early universe: “The peaks indicate harmonics in the sound waves that filled the early, dense universe. Until some 300,000 years after the Big Bang, the universe was so hot that matter and radiation were entangled in a kind of soup in which sound waves (pressure waves) could vibrate. The CMB is a relic of the moment when the universe had cooled enough so that photons could "decouple" from electrons, protons, and neutrons; then atoms formed and light went on its way.”
On the least scale, we see string theory which suggests that reality consists of vibrating strings: ”In string theory, as in guitar playing, the string must be stretched under tension in order to become excited. However, the strings in string theory are floating in spacetime, they aren't tied down to a guitar. Nonetheless, they have tension. The string tension in string theory is denoted by the quantity 1/(2 p a'), where a' is pronounced "alpha prime"and is equal to the square of the string length scale.”
Not surprisingly, current string theory research suggests that there may be an even more fundamental theory: ”We still don't know what the fundamental theory behind string theory is, but judging from all of these relationships, it must be a very interesting and rich theory, one where distance scales, coupling strengths and even the number of dimensions in spacetime are not fixed concepts but fluid entities that shift with our point of view.”
And most importantly, the Scriptures tell us that God spoke everything into existence (Genesis 1, Psalms 33:6) – that the Word of God, Jesus Christ, is through Whom all things were made (John 1, Col 1, etc.) IOW, God speaking to man through the Scriptures has revealed as much. We ought not be surprised to observe mathematical and physical evidence.
Returning then to the mid-scale – biological life – we have thoroughly discussed the significance of Shannon-Weaver, (paraphrased) successful communications in biological systems. Perhaps now it is time to turn to Shannon-Nyquist to see what harmonics can tell us? For instance, in the evolution of biological information can we distinguish between noise and harmonics?
For background: Information Theory with a discussion of harmonics, channels, frequencies
One other point while we are on harmonics and biological systems - isn’t it interesting that music can soothe or agitate, that “earworms” form in our minds where a tune stays with us in the background no matter what we try to do to get rid of it?
The supposed magical properties of music have been part of our folklore for a very long time: The story of Orpheus and Eurydice. Orpheus was able to use music to charm even the gods, and to undo the death of his sweetheart.
I'm not surprised to see such ancient references to the properties of music and the psyche. In the most primitive of cultures, rhythmic beating stirs the passions for war and breeding.
And there is the ancient Eastern mystic practice of sound in meditation. The Jewish Kabbalists (the ancient ones) believed that sound is so much a structure of reality that certain words are forbidden.
Musical scores help us to understand plots. And even now, experiments in healing rates with/without harp music are promising.
Fascinating...
I would like to offer "Torn Curtain" as a counterexample. (Of course, Bernard Herrmann's original score was better, it was later rejected.)
Note that reality does not have "Danger Music."
What better example of a musical score getting us into a plot that Herrmann's in "Pyscho" and "North by Northwest"? And how well we remember those movies!
"Torn Curtain" by contrast is a big blank to me. Hitchcock's sun set when he disengaged with Herrmann - so perhaps that is also telling.
At any rate, I can see where musical score can also be used to obscure a plot - or misdirect an audience to suspect someone or something else. I'm going to have to rewatch "Death Trap" now...
Thank you so much for opening these doors!
Music has to do with patterns of sound and silence while mathematics is involved more with pattern. Together they are useful for exploring the inter-connectedness of apparently different fields. Each is an art, but each is also a science. Interestingly, the Hebrew language happens to be both -- both math and music, both art and science
The webpage has some very useful and clear animations to help understand what harmonics "look" like from the data.
A harmonic, or overtone, is an oscillation of a standing wave other than the fundamental (center line so to speak). Wave functions are, of course, fundamental to quantum mechanics - but it would be a challenge (perhaps an impossible one) - to differentiate between harmonics and harmonic distortions (noise) caused by the superposition described in the above link.
I'm sorry to have been away since Sunday, but a big freelance job came in and I've been working away at it. I'm hopelessly behind on this thread. Oh, well....
A while back, I proposed that we ought to consider whether the universe itself is an "evolving population of one." This seems to have been controversial -- it was suggested that we were taking a tear into metaphysics with such a concept (which I deny!). Perhaps it was just too abstract....
So let's head in the opposite direction here, and look at very basic, concrete cases that we may observe in nature. Our mutual friend Dr. G has written something so elementary, so fundamental -- but at the same time makes us realize that there is such a thing as "biological information," that we might call the life principle (or fecundity principle). See what you think of this:
* * * * * * *
We define material objects (MO) as the ones following only the laws of physics (free fall, Newton’s law, TD laws etc.). Considering the objects of Nature, it is a general experience that a large class of natural objects of our man-scaled environment (stones, water-drops, air flows; but even smaller scaled objects, like elementary particles) can be regarded as MO.
On the other hand, there exists another type of natural object, whose behavior is (usually) not governed by physical laws. For example, when we exert a Newtonian force on a living cat, it will not accelerate uniformly following Newton’s law a=F/m. Instead, the cat will react with a spectacularly different reaction. This behavior – and a whole class of similar phenomena – presents a basically different category; it belongs to the category of living organisms (LO).
Living organism are – without doubt – not man-made artifacts like machines. At the same time, only a well-programmed robot can mimic the gross behavior of a living organism (and only on a short timescale). This similarity means that living organisms are similar to machines in that they are also under dual control. At the same time, their boundary conditions are not controlled by physical factors. Therefore living organisms are systems governed by physically unrestricted boundary conditions that are governed by natural factors. And if there is a consequent character in biological behavior – and we know that the behavior of a cat rarely appears to be similar to inert bodies – these natural factors has to represent the observed consequent character. Therefore, the natural factors governing our biological behavior through our internal boundary conditions have to be laws. These laws are not man-created laws, therefore they are natural laws. Therefore, the laws of biological organisms – the biological laws – are natural laws. Since biological gross behavior differs from the motion of inert bodies, biological laws should differ from physical laws.
The difference between the behavior of MO and LO is so fundamental, that in practice everybody distinguishes easily between an MO and an LO, from early childhood. Material objects (MOs) do not move by themselves. Living organisms (LOs) are moving by themselves. MOs are inert bodies falling towards physical equilibrium. LOs are active bodies preserving their distances from the physical equilbrium. MO’s gross behavior is not sensitive to the information arising from their environment through light and sound waves. LOs are usually sensitive to such outer effects. MOs behavior is mechanical, automatical. LOs behavior is not mechanical and is not automatic. The force attacking on MO’s parts determines the motion of a MO. LO act as an integral whole. Moreover, MOs when cut with a knife remain deformed. LOs when cut with a knife can repair themselves. The matter of the LOs can be completely replaced with new materials without any substantial change in the behavior of the given organism (all the cells of the human organism are replaced every 7 years without necessary corresponding basic changes in personality). [Emphasis added}
All MOs, as a whole, by definition, follow the laws of physics. LOs, as a whole, follow different laws. Therefore it is inevitable to introduce the life principle (autonomous biological laws) [i.e., the fecundity principle] if we want to understand Nature, including life phenomena.
…With the help of the insight obtained by our biological inputs, we can explain one of the most unusual phenomena of living organisms. This unusual phenomenon we may term as “conduct through decisions”. Let us illustrate it with an example. A small boy notes a nice butterfly flying nearby to him and decides to run after it. What happens within his body?
We know that already a few photons are able to elicit the reaction. Therefore, the energy of the incoming sign is E=hv~10-11 ergs. The result, the run of the boy after the flying butterfly, e.g. on a distance of 20 meters, in the case of a boy having a weight ~50 kg, will be ~1012 ergs. This means that within the boy’s body a meaningful amplification of the biocurrent related to the conscious decision will set up, and amplify the input signal by cca. 23 orders of magnitude! This amplification process galvanizes a system of biocurrents in a cascade process, as if lights of a Christmas tree would induce one after the other in a chain reaction towards an “attractor”. In our picture, the “attractor” arises naturally as supplied by the global, integral regulation. The biological organization picks out the optimal range of endpoints, and the actual physical processes are subservient to the biologically determined ends.
This process offers without any additional assumption a natural, global, integral regulation by the cooperation of the biological and physical first principles. Certainly, the meaningful amplification implies a biological organization. A biological organization that would act from step to step, locally, would be unable to be consistent with the decision made. Therefore, a global, integral regulation is involved, that cohere all the steps of the amplification process. In our picture, suggesting that it is the life principle that is in charge in organizing our biological activity, we have a principal governance that first determines the endpoint of the trajectory to follow. After the endpoint is determined by biological inputs, the physical governance is set into action. Similarly to the utmost ease with which stones are able to follow the action principle, the boy’s bodily processes follow the life principle and its subservient principle, the action principle, and so the astronomical numbers of chemical reactions are all cohered “automatically”, or, more precisely, “principally”.
Biological actions have a natural relation to fulfill some ends. This end-fulfilling property differs from the apparent teleological property of inanimate bodies that also follow the action principle, and so they minimize action in that the living organisms determine their endpoints as far from the physical equilibrium as possible, while the inanimate objects “select” the endpoint corresponding to the physical equilibrium. This basic difference makes the introduction of life principle necessary into science.
* * * * * * *
Back to basics!!! LOL!!!
Now, just for the fun of it, try to fit the hypothesis of abiogenesis into this picture....
Thanks so much for writing, A-G!
I can see right away that I had a different reading of the Fecundity Principle because I was applying it universally - such that it would include both the "life principle" of LOs and the "action principle" of MOs. There certainly is a difference between the two.
Nevertheless, I still believe there is something - though it probably ought not to be called the Fecundity Principle - which is present from the inception of the universe and which causes the aggression which supports life (e.g. asymmetry of matter v anti-matter, mirror symmetry, dualities, string harmonics). But perhaps we ought not "go there" on this thread.
Completely wrong here, BB. No action taken by the cat violates Newton's laws.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.