Morality Play

Abstract Entities

2010-07-24T02:48:00.001-02:30

Version 0.0
Draft.

Discussion on this post can be found: here.

~

As a pre-requisite for this post, see: A way to no-thing but perhaps dust. Which takes a purely reductionist view. This post is the opposite of the reductionist view in that it examines the effects of things that take more than a single quanta to represent or are therefore "abstract."

~

Visual memetics of abstract reality: Parabola.
Lyrical memetics of abstract reality: Parabola.

In our Universe and perceived reality there are objects we interact with. These objects are not "real" in an absolute sense rather they are simplifications created by our senses that we interact with at "higher" levels of reality. A "higher" level simply means that the complete details of an object have been collapsed somewhat and we do not perceive the complete detail of an object when interacting with it.

All the reality that is presented by our senses is abstract. We are incapable of perceiving the "real" quanta and instead our senses operate above the base level of reality. We are also thinking beings in that we process information and emit actions into our environment which in turn absorbs those actions and results in changes that follow a logical physics.

Everything in our Universe can be viewed as a "thinking" thing. A rock sits there all day and "thinks" about being a "rock." A solar-system "thinks" about being a "solar-system." You "think" about being "you." This may be tautological in a sense but the illustration is that things that "are", "are."

With the addition of "time" another property of our Universe is exposed in thinking things. This is "information flow." When multiple thinking entities interact, information can be emitted from one and absorbed by another, processed in both and repeating as long as the entities are within an affect range of each other. The process of absorbing, processing, and emitting information between entities can be described as "communication." With a "calculating" stance taken towards this process entities within an affect range of each other may be "combined" into a "higher-level form" or "entity" for the duration of the affect. This "collapsing" is similar to the sense that 2 + 2 can be thought of as 4 while they are together.

"Higher-level" entities may or may not be apparent to the entities they are composed of. The composing entities have their own reason and reality and these are separate from the combined entity they collapse into. A "higher-level" or "collapsed" entity composed of other entities has its own reality with its own objects and logical physics to interact with but it's reality is a further abstraction and the "realities" of its composing objects are not necessarily able to be sensed from the "higher-level".

There, however, is still calculation that ebbs between the levels of reality. The compositions that create a "higher-level" entity still do processing on their own levels and while they do their processing, their own affects are emitted and absorbed on their own level of reality. These information transactions affect the higher-level collapsed entity as well.

All levels of reality are represented in the totality of our Universe, all of them "are" at the same time. Anything that has a logical structure to it is valid in the totality but as humans, our reason may not perceive everything that is valid in a specific moment.

A way to no-thing but dust.

2010-06-21T23:26:00.017-02:30

"A way to no-thing but perhaps dust."
Dust in the Wind - Kansas.

Complete discussion: here.

Zen

Expressions are computed and the representations are in substrate. Every thing is an expression, every substrate is matter, for our Universe.

All scales and scopes have their own expressions.

Finely interwoven expressions are, we know not the true physics.

Reminded that there is only dust. Endless forms evolved and evolving are representations and are not dust. Arranged dust, yes, are, no.

Considering arrangements of word dust, which is still far removed from real dust:

Each word is a concept and is a machine. How they run together defines the qualities and quantities of thought. Still, there is only dust.

Language is but a machine, and I push and pull it's levers. And the machine crumbles to dust in an instant.

Reason

The dust is a metaphor for matter. There is only dust is a purely reductionist view: the only thing that exists are quanta and everything else made up of more than a quanta is a representation. Representations interact with each other and have logic but they do not actually exist: only the quanta exist. There is only dust. A galaxy has a logic to it but there is no galaxy object in our Universe, there is only a collection of dust that the human mind lumps together into a representation and calls that representation a galaxy.

Physics, whatever it may be, is contained within the word "computed."

"what does the computing?"

That is undefined. You could say, it is the mystery of dust.

Dust depends on a base form to the Universe. If there are things infinitely smaller and smaller than quanta then dust becomes just another expression.

Method

The method between the Universe and quanta is recursive. The top is the Universe and the bottom is quanta. Between, the parameter to subdivide or combine with is expressions, which are representations which exist in substrate. The parameter encapsulates phenomena by being generic. There is an assumed base case, the quanta, which ends the recursion when you start at the top but if things go infinitely beyond quanta then the recursion may continue infinitely as well. Beginning from the bottom, at quanta, using the same parameter you can recursively combine towards the top as well. Which also may or may not be infinite. The scaling occurs in either direction, top to bottom, or bottom to top.

The perspective taken with this framework is that of a passive observer. All scales of the Universe have interrelating expressions which you may scale up and down. While scaling the expressions represent an instant in time and are therefore static. Once you have more than one instant then an expression becomes a scope which is a thinking thing, like a solar-system, the scope you may enter and examine it's process but you are never able to directly experience what it is to be the scope.

Consequences

With the set of dust only representing "Reality" representations built on top of that dust have a degree of "realness" that is less than the base Reality. The reality that you and I experience is "real" but it's degree of "realness" is less than dust's degree of Reality.

Linux Desktop

2010-06-19T00:16:00.002-02:30

Here is a short video demonstration of my computer's desktop environment.

For reference, here is how my previous demonstration of a Linux desktop went:

Mnemonics, Statements, and Connectors.

2010-06-08T20:31:00.002-02:30

As a continuation of: Continuui, I'm going to examine some of the logic you can get Continuui and Continuums to hold.

A suitable set of mnemonics to practice with is defined: Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri

Each quote on that page is it's own mnemonic, take some time to peruse through them. Most of them are related around fictional modern human issues but the occasional mnemonic is also drawn from our actual history.

Mnemonics can be thought of as a sequence of statements that illuminate various concepts. They work with your imagination to shine light on structure when applied to different situations. The set of mnemonics defines a complex as possible imaginary structure. You ponder pieces of it and relate each piece to your own personal experience. They are in effect programs for specific interrelation of domains. The human mind takes care of all the messy details like making the concepts fit exactly.

Statements are fragments of mnemonics. They are singular logical constructs which relate qualities or quantities or both. Fragments pool around and you launch each one making note of what you think for the following ones.

Connectors can be thought of as little helpers that just gracefully bridge statements. Some classical ones include and, or, and not. Human ones are not so brittle. You can have connectors such as compatible with, is part of, is a flavor of, and as many as you can imagine.

As you practice statements and connectors Mnemonics emerge. Most of your mnemonics will remain unnamed and you just use them by feel.

Mnemonics are what you use inside of Continuui and Continuums.

Continuui

2010-06-05T07:33:00.087-02:30

Version 3.20

Continuui and Continuums are mnemonics. As mnemonics you need to practice or train your own set of Continuui and Continuums to use them.

As a pre-requisite for using these mnemonics you should have a basic memory system. What fits well and what I recommend is the Roman Room technique with each Continuui and Continuum being it's own distinct room.

My main goal of writing these mnemonics is to further my understanding of object-orientated programming in a computer. Everything else is secondary but I posted it here so that minds other than myself can winnow out the errors in it and perhaps use it for their own purposes.

--

Continuui and Continuums are both flavors of structure. Continuui are a control structure and Continuums are a value structure.

A Continuui can be thought of as a container containing further Continuui or referenced Continuums. Each Continuui contains a logic to traverse it, values it can report - including consequences, and actions it can perform. Traversing the structure of a Continuui using it's logic you get a result. The type of the particular result depends on how the Continuui represents it's knowledge. In this manner a Continuui is a generic concept that can be used to traverse or evaluate further Continuui and Continuums.

The logic to traverse a Continuui can be thought of as following a sequence of evaluations and actions between the contained Continuui and Continuums. Each Continuum in a Continuui is transformed in relation to other Continuums in the same Continuui. If a further referenced Continuui is not found in the current container the parent container is used for the definition and so on.

A Continuum can be thought of as a Symbol. A Continuum is also a container. As with a Continuui it also contains a logic, values, and actions. Continuums exist in hierarchies and a specific Continuum within a hierarchy is always referenced. The logic of a Continuum processes values contained within itself and if they are not present in that Continuum the parent Continuum is used for the definition and so on. Retrieving or setting a value in another Continuum uses that Continuum's logic.

Programming context: Continuui are roughly equivalent to a program in a computer language. Where they differ is that in Continuui, Continuums: Symbols or variables - are also programs.

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Defining a Continuum can follow this process:

Continuum. Complete set of all information. The totality of a symbol. Totality means everything that was, is, and will be. To sum up a continuum, logically organize top-down into pieces. Discard all variation or take the set. Sets contain no duplicates. Interrelate* unique pieces into theories. Map sequences of action or consequences through the network of relationships between theories. Define a logic to process sequences of actions and consequences which gives a result. Result quality matches theory quality. At completion, the rest of the result is symbol specific.

* Interrelation is defined depending on the domain of the Continuum.

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As a usage example:

From the Sciences. Say you have a Continuum named Physics which may reference more specialized sub-Continuums. Physics can be used to evaluate if another named Continuum is compatible with it. You could have a Continuui which contained many named Continuums and the logic of the Continuui is just to test whether each of those Continuums is compatible with Physics. You would winnow out the impossible Continuums you were comparing to the quality of your own understanding of your Physics Continuum.

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The advantages of using Continuui and Continuum mnemonics is that the processing of information is done in your mind. The human mind is the most powerful computer we know of. The logics a computer is able to process is but a small slice of the logic a human is able to process. The concepts of Continuui and Continuums when combined with a memory system or other mnemonics allows you to logically organize and process the natural world in ways an actual computer just does not compute.

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Discussion of Continuui to refine further can take place: here.

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Continues: Here

Knowledge Engineer Program

2010-06-02T16:51:00.015-02:30

I'm planning a program. It is implemented using Python. It will be GPLv3 so as a public project if you'd like to help out then please post a comment or instructions in any form: hints, tips, where to setup project, similar existing projects, etc.

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Research has led me to a framework called PyKE. PyKE is a Python Knowledge Engine.

PyKE is a meta-programming framework. Instead of traversing your program using the standard interpreter it in effect caches the traversal using an alternate form of logic processing and these custom sequences of traversal, called plans, can be then stored, executed, modified, or queried.

This in a further effect has the property of "compiling" your Python code to a very efficient form for Python to interpret from Python's point of view. Fast.

PyKE was originally developed as a caching method into SQL databases but was generalized and also contains a complete expert system framework.

--

The program I am planning is intended mainly to give myself some experience with the Python language and standard library with a few additional modules as well. However, as a specialized tool others may find it useful as well.

The program is a "Knowledge Engineer Shell"

Some initial constraints:

-> Completely web-based. It is written as a local web-application server that you point your web-browser at.

-> Uses PyKE as a template web-server to implement a web-application. Optionally, a URL to Class-Method mapping logic may be used from CherryPy.

-> Provides a shell into PyKE.

-> Shell allows manipulation and persistence of user-defined Knowledge Bases and Plans.

-> Knowledge Bases and Plans can be created, organized, modified, and iterated over using the web-application.

-> Graphing functions* are available:

-> * A mini-language to specify a particular view into your information. It may be graphical, textual, or anything else that can be represented in the information. The: Python Imaging Library can generate files to use server-side for the HTML served.

This is pretty general so far but creates hopefully an efficient and expressive interface to generate information for PyKE to consume. Nice web-application for non-programmers to use.

So, if you have any comments at all please do.

Bill.

Environments, Agents, and Decisions.

2010-06-01T16:00:00.014-02:30

I'm fleshing out some systems I intend to write right now.

It will be an environment with agents that are based on a decision system.

The decision system is an expert system. The expert system will include calling other expert systems or recursion as functions or procedures. The rules of the expert system will be based on fuzzy logic for control structures such as 'If' and 'While' and neural-networks for some mapping functions such as 'If a=b'. The expert system will contain custom data types for variables, including the already mentioned fuzzy and neural, and perhaps others such as bayesian and of course boolean.

The agents are where the traversal of decision systems take place. Each agent is expected to contain a Turing complete evaluation and control language. Embedded in this language are functions that provide sensors, effectors, and of course the decision systems. Agents contain their own local variables distinct from decision systems they contain. Agents are controlled by the environment and are therefore modeled after generators. The agent performs the maximum actions it can in the time-slice specified by the environment and then yields back to the environment. In the next time-slice the agent resumes exactly where it left off.

The environment holds agents and contains information that is not local to the agent for the agent to interact with. The environment is active in that it has rules of physics and the like but it is not a decision system per-se. The environment handles scheduling of agents. Agents are synchronized into environmental time-slices for output. The environment may be interactive as in a game or it may require no interaction as in a simulation.

Decision systems represent knowledge, agents represent programs that operate on top of that knowledge, and the environment represents multi-agent coordination.

The net-work of these three systems is filed under: artificial life.

So this is where I am right now.

Doing some digging around I came across an IDE called: breve. It seems to be similar to what I am trying to build so I'm going to spend some time using it and learning lessons from it.

The Matrix Trilogy

2010-05-29T17:50:00.000-02:30

There is no escape from the Matrix.

Here is how I interpret the Matrix Trilogy, it is definitely not cannon if such a thing exists and is mainly an exercise in imagination.

Humans are extinct. In the "Animatix" in "The Second Renaissance" Part II, the machines cast humans into a new form. They reduced all of human experience to a machine-processable form. In "Program" loyalty is shown to be the only quality that creates the groupings of humans and machines.

At the end of "The Matrix Reloaded" Neo seems to enter the Matrix without an apparatus to perform the function. This indicates that the "real" world is simply another layer in the Matrix. There are no mystical qualities to the Universe so this is a logical conclusion.

At the end of "The Matrix Revolutions" Neo sacrifices himself to stop a virus infecting the machine systems. The machines accept that this demonstrates loyalty and accept the human information further into their society reducing the constraints of the Matrix. The war ends.

You! Spaghetti Code!

2010-05-29T03:02:00.001-02:30

As a programmer I tend to rate people by their organization. All too often you will interact with people whose thought process' are the computing equivalent of "spaghetti code." Quite a few people live their lives as a sequence of "this-leads-to-that"'s with a few points where they will make a decision. For myself I try to understand the world, construct models of how I believe it works in my mind, and then run through what-if musings. It's never perfect, as with anything, with the major limit being my own imagination.

Knowledge Limits

2010-05-29T02:02:00.001-02:30

When arguing, point out that it is a logical fact that God might exist.

Science for all its naming of things has still not progressed beyond "It's turtles all the way down." There is no scientific understanding for the totality of the Universe and we don't even know the actual scope of it either.

Without a theory of everything we cannot even begin to fathom the true nature of our Universe. So, is it not hubris to deny the quality of God from our Universe without truly knowing what we are talking about?

Logically, the existence of God is neither True nor False. Instead it is undecided until we truly understand our Universe.

2010-03-21T00:21:00.002-02:30

This is mainly a test of embedding a YouTube video but also I happen to agree with Stallman here:

As an aside, check out what everyone does too!:

Prove your Mettle.

2010-03-19T14:58:00.003-02:30

We should get rid of the democracy thing. It forces decisions to fall to the lowest common denominator. When it comes to decisions I believe everyone should have a say but the people who make the decision final should have proven merit to make the decision. So this is what I think we should replace democracy with: meritocracy. It is a real thing, not just something I've pulled out of a hat. Many Linux distributions are run as meritocracies, prove you know what you're talking about and you get to make decisions. People will moan and say "but I want my voice to be heard!" Yes, always hear the voices but don't be hesitant at all to label them what they often are: stupid. I'd like to see this implemented all throughout our government and the people who would get to make decisions always be in competition with others who are also proving themselves for the right to make decisions. Internet technology has provided the means to separate out the wheat from the chaff, start a blog, write well, write with insight on what makes things work. In a perfect world when what you had predicted to happen happened enough people would wise up and figure out that maybe, just maybe, you're not full of crap. Then you get to make the decisions until someone else points out that you have no clothes. It may not be a perfect idea but it is a hell of a lot better than the representative democracy we have now that concentrates votes of opinion into a few gatekeepers who are easily swayed by "special-interest" or outright bribes called "donations" today. The pool of decision makers is also too small with representatives: draw from everyone, let everyone log onto their computer each night when they get home and prove that they are not an idiot. Right now in our government if you make bad decisions you just get shuffled to another ministry that you are equally clueless about and the cycle repeats. Thats no way to run a government.

Ubuntu Lucid Lynx, iPods, and Popcorn!

2010-03-18T18:07:00.000-02:30

The next release of Ubuntu Linux, Lucid Lynx, is just over a month away. I'm looking forward to it! The usual list of improvements and fixes are present. One of the notable additions is iPod support. You could add this in yourself if you like with older versions and I have actually done so for one of my family members but having it out-of-the-box will certainly make people feel more comfortable about it as a "supported" item. Apple uses encryption to keep you out of your own iPod and ostensibly they say this is about "piracy" but even they themselves make it trivial to get around their "protections" where they haven't dropped them yet. More so in my opinion it's more about routing you to the iTunes store - or in other words I believe they want you to buy stuff from them so they make it very difficult to put your own stuff on your own iPod. Shiny or not this is the reason my next MP3 player will be based on open-standards and not lock me out of my own and owned device.

Speaking of devices, I use my Xbox 360 to stream my media from my PC to my HDTV. I just came across another device that I find very interesting! The: Popcorn Hour device. You won't find it on their page but the device is completely built on top of Linux and supports all sorts of Linux features such as networked file systems (NFS) and a Linux version of a media server in addition to standard ones to run on your Linux box. Of course it also works fully well with Windows boxes and arguably that is their primary market but its nice to see that as a Linux user I'm fully supported too! The model I'm looking at is the $179 model and I'd add my own hard-drive to it. It will probably work out to be a tad expensive considering those are American prices but hey, I'd only have to buy it once! Right now I'm interested in it and it is something I'll route piggy-bank savings towards but also my Xbox 360 fulfills the primary function of displaying video on my HDTV from my PC right now so it's a back-burner thing. I want it now I just need to justify it to myself! The Popcorn Hour device does much more than an Xbox 360 so it won't be hard to fill out the justification it's just a matter of how useful those extra features will end up being - the 360 just plays video files from my PC, Popcorn does all sorts of things including streaming content from the Internet...

Linux and the Ubuntu of things.

2010-03-17T16:36:00.000-02:30

I'll level with you. Linux is great but still requires at a minimum a basic understanding of how your computer and operating system functions. Linux tends to just work until rarely, very rarely, something breaks. When something breaks you either need to call over the family geek to fix it for you or you need to understand enough of how it broke to use Google to find the solution yourself.

I use Ubuntu Linux myself and am quite happy with it. The vast majority of mom-and-pop would find out that if they moved over to Linux that it actually does do the vast majority of things they need in their daily lives. The 1% that it doesn't do can almost always be also set up so the Linux uses the Windows program itself to accomplish the task. The Linux program that does that 1% is called WINE. The area where Linux really is deficient is in gaming. I'm not talking about your Facebook games - those will work fine. The gaming I'm talking about is the latest and greatest shoot 'em up the kids play. Not very many of those run on Linux. How I solved this issue considering that Linux is the only operating system on my computer is that I went out and bought an Xbox 360. This keeps my gaming separate (along with issues that surround gaming) and my computer productive.

I'm always willing to help my friends and family with Linux: I will install it and configure it for free and most of the time I'm done with that. I come back occasionally when they need a new program installed and besides that Linux tends to keep itself in good working order. For a variety of reasons once they're on Linux as well the virus and malware issues also totally disappear for people so issues that also surround that are also gone.

Linux is Free (capital F) software and this is why I use it, not the quality of the programs themselves. Free software is user-driven. What I get is what we are all clamoring for - otherwise no one would install it. Commercial software is like this as well but it is not as pure in implementation: you get what you want but it is also filtered through marketing priorities. Anyone who has ever had to deal with a bad Windows Genuine Advantage situation learns to rue the marketing. On Linux you just install and your software is Free: you really have to go out of your way to find and install something that limits you. The exception to this are basic computer components called "drivers." Those are just to get the machinery of your computer going itself, what you put on top of that is almost always Free on Linux.

So if I'm ever in your area remember that I will do Linux for you for Free going with its philosophy but also keep in mind that if you want the latest virus taken off of your Windows box then thats going to cost you - also going with Windows' philosophy!

Tap, tap, is this thing on?

2010-03-16T21:56:00.000-02:30

This is a first test post. Hopefully the first of many, if I don't lose interest or perhaps unless a meteor hits me on the way to the store.