Preposterous Universe Episode 1: Thought-Reading in 5 Years?

Preposterous Universe Episode 1: Thought-Reading in 5 Years?
 
Sean's Post: New Video Project

Obama Proposes Brain Mapping Project 

See Also:

• Sensor Developments for Human Condition
• Tan Le: A headset that reads your brainwaves
• Self-organization

Think About Nature on Edge.Org

Lee Smolin

The main question I'm asking myself, the question that puts everything together, is how to do cosmology; how to make a theory of the universe as a whole system. This is said to be the golden age of cosmology and it is from an observational point of view, but from a theoretical point of view it's almost a disaster. It's crazy the kind of ideas that we find ourselves thinking about. And I find myself wanting to go back to basics—to basic ideas and basic principles—and understand how we describe the world in a physical theory. See:Think About Nature

See Also:

• Getting Perspective on Time

• Time, Born Again

John Legend: "True Colors"

http://www.ted.com/talks/john_legend_true_colors.html

See Also:

• Color of Gravity 4

Slac-All Access

Three hundred and fifty miles overhead, the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope silently glides through space. From this serene vantage point, the satellite's instruments watch the fiercest processes in the universe unfold. Pulsars spin up to 700 times a second, sweeping powerful beams of gamma-ray light through the cosmos. The hyperactive cores of distant galaxies spew bright jets of plasma. Far beyond, something mysterious explodes with unfathomable power, sending energy waves crashing through the universe. Stanford professor and KIPAC member Roger W. Romani talks about this orbiting telescope, the most advanced ever to view the sky in gamma rays, a form of light at the highest end of the energy spectrum that's created in the hottest regions of the universe.

See: http://fgst.slac.stanford.edu/

See Also:

• Fermi Gamma-Ray Sky

Geometric Patterns At the Basis of Reality

Western psychological interpretations According to the psychologist David Fontana, its symbolic nature can help one "to access progressively deeper levels of the unconscious, ultimately assisting the meditator to experience a mystical sense of oneness with the ultimate unity from which the cosmos in all its manifold forms arises."[26] The psychoanalyst Carl Jung saw the mandala as "a representation of the unconscious self,"[citation needed] and believed his paintings of mandalas enabled him to identify emotional disorders and work towards wholeness in personality.[27] See: Mandala

It would be hard for one to see the subjectivity of one's experiences so that they may say, that such a thing could be misleading. If you believe in a way with which consciousness may have some kind of structure then how would you describe that structure? All you see is a body with a brain, or, words that let you know that some kind of intelligence exists behind the tapping of the keys that represented words that materialize here.


Escher Drawing Hands, 1948.

But the idea here is more then that. I became convinced that such methodicalness from a visual representation could be more then the sum of it's part because in a way, it could encapsulate a lot of things. I grasp on to visual reasoning so as to imply that we can receive pictures that are complete unto themself( complete knowledge of), yet hold greater meaning as the symbol is seen in context of an examination of life.

...underwriting the form languages of ever more domains of mathematics is a set of deep patterns which not only offer access to a kind of ideality that Plato claimed to see the universe as created with in the Timaeus; more than this, the realm of Platonic forms is itself subsumed in this new set of design elements-- and their most general instances are not the regular solids, but crystallographic reflection groups. You know, those things the non-professionals call . . . kaleidoscopes! * (In the next exciting episode, we'll see how Derrida claims mathematics is the key to freeing us from 'logocentrism'-- then ask him why, then, he jettisoned the deepest structures of mathematical patterning just to make his name...)

* H. S. M. Coxeter, Regular Polytopes (New York: Dover, 1973) is the great classic text by a great creative force in this beautiful area of geometry (A polytope is an n-dimensional analog of a polygon or polyhedron. Chapter V of this book is entitled 'The Kaleidoscope'....)"

So lets say "you are present" with a experience in your dream time that is totally off the wall. Who is it's manufacturer to have detailed such a scene so as to speak to something quite personal to you, and with it, help you to see the error of your ways? How is complete knowledge gained? You knew better already?:)

Felix Klein on intuition

It is my opinion that in teaching it is not only admissible, but absolutely necessary, to be less abstract at the start, to have constant regard to the applications, and to refer to the refinements only gradually as the student becomes able to understand them. This is, of course, nothing but a universal pedagogical principle to be observed in all mathematical instruction ....

I am led to these remarks by the consciousness of growing danger in Germany of a separation between abstract mathematical science and its scientific and technical applications. Such separation can only be deplored, for it would necessarily be followed by shallowness on the side of the applied sciences, and by isolation on the part of pure mathematics ....

Perhaps you can write a visual interpretation of an image that would likely pass as close to the image that is being described. Do you find familiarity with it or have you see it some where else?

Intuition and Logic in Mathematics by Henri Poincaré

On the other hand, look at Professor Klein: he is studying one of the most abstract questions of the theory of functions to determine whether on a given Riemann surface there always exists a function admitting of given singularities. What does the celebrated German geometer do? He replaces his Riemann surface by a metallic surface whose electric conductivity varies according to certain laws. He connects two of its points with the two poles of a battery. The current, says he, must pass, and the distribution of this current on the surface will define a function whose singularities will be precisely those called for by the enunciation.

The dream is a little hidden door in the innermost and most secret recesses of the soul, opening into that cosmic night which was psyche long before there was any ego consciousness, and which will remain psyche no matter how far our ego consciousness extends.... All consciousness separates; but in dreams we put on the likeness of that more universal, truer, more eternal man dwelling in the darkness of primordial night. There he is still the whole, and the whole is in him, indistinguishable from nature and bare of all egohood. It is from these all-uniting depths that the dream arises, be it never so childish, grotesque, and immoral. Carl Jung

By 'dilating' and 'expanding' the scope of our attention we not only discover that 'form is emptiness' (the donut has a hole), but also that 'emptiness is form' (objects precipitate out of the larger 'space') - to use Buddhist terminology. The emptiness that we arrive at by narrowing our focus on the innermost is identical to the emptiness that we arrive at by expanding our focus to the outermost. The 'infinitely large' is identical to the 'infinitesimally small'. The Structure of Consciousness John Fudjack - September, 1999

Is there not some understanding here of what is gained by a deductive/inductive realizations with regard to our interactions with the world? Is there not some sense here of something topologically significant on a abstract level, that explains this aspect of consciousness? I call it a toposense?

If conceived as a series of ever-wider experiential contexts, nested one within the other like a set of Chinese boxes, consciousness can be thought of as wrapping back around on itself in such a way that the outermost 'context' is indistinguishable from the innermost 'content' - a structure for which we coined the term 'liminocentric'.

Who is the Clockmaker?

Crucifixion (Corpus Hypercubus) - oil painting by Salvador Dalí

I see a clock, but I cannot envision the clockmaker. The human mind is unable to conceive of the four dimensions, so how can it conceive of a God, before whom a thousand years and a thousand dimensions are as one?

• From Cosmic religion: with other opinions and aphorisms (1931), Albert Einstein, pub. Covici-Friede. Quoted in The Expanded Quotable Einstein, Princeton University Press; 2nd edition (May 30, 2000); Page 208, ISBN 0691070210

The phrase of course stuck in my mind. Who is the clockmaker. I was more at ease with what Einstein quote spoke about with regards to the fourth dimension and here, thoughts of Dali made their way into my head.

The watchmaker analogy, watchmaker fallacy, or watchmaker argument, is a teleological argument. By way of an analogy, the argument states that design implies a designer. The analogy has played a prominent role in natural theology and the "argument from design," where it was used to support arguments for the existence of God and for the intelligent design of the universe.

The most famous statement of the teleological argument using the watchmaker analogy was given by William Paley in his 1802 book. The 1859 publication of Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection put forward an alternative explanation for complexity and adaptation, and so provided a counter-argument to the watchmaker analogy. Richard Dawkins referred to the analogy in his 1986 book The Blind Watchmaker giving his explanation of evolution.

In the United States, starting in the 1960s, creationists revived versions of the argument to dispute the concepts of evolution and natural selection, and there was renewed interest in the watchmaker argument.

I have always shied away from the argument based on the analogy, fallacy and argument, as I wanted to show my thoughts here regardless of what had been transmitted and exposed on an objective level argument. Can I do this without incurring the wrought of a perspective in society and share my own?

I mean even Dali covered the Tesseract by placing Jesus on the cross in a sense Dali was exposing something that such dimensional significance may have been implied as some degree of Einstein's quote above? Of course I speculate but it always being held to some idea of a dimensional constraint that no other words can speak of it other then it's science. Which brings me back to Einstein's quote.

The construction of a hypercube can be imagined the following way:

• 1-dimensional: Two points A and B can be connected to a line, giving a new line segment AB.
• 2-dimensional: Two parallel line segments AB and CD can be connected to become a square, with the corners marked as ABCD.
• 3-dimensional: Two parallel squares ABCD and EFGH can be connected to become a cube, with the corners marked as ABCDEFGH.
• 4-dimensional: Two parallel cubes ABCDEFGH and IJKLMNOP can be connected to become a hypercube, with the corners marked as ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOP.

So for me it is about what lays at the basis of reality as to question that all our experiences, in some way masks the inevitable design at a deeper level of perceptions so as to say that such a diagram is revealing.

I operate from this principal given the understanding that all experience is part of the diagram of the logic of a visual reasoning in which such examples are dispersed upon our assessments of the day. While Einstein spoke, he had a reason from which such quote espoused the picture he had in his head?

Also too if I were to deal with the subjectivity of our perceptions then how could I ever be clear as I muddy the waters of such straight lines and such with all the pictures of a dream by Pauli?  I ask that however you look at the plainness of the dream expanded by Jung, that one consider the pattern underneath it all.  I provide 2 links below for examination.

This page lists the regular polytopes in Euclidean, spherical and hyperbolic spaces. Clicking on any picture will magnify it.

The Schläfli symbol notation describes every regular polytope, and is used widely below as a compact reference name for each.

The regular polytopes are grouped by dimension and subgrouped by convex, nonconvex and infinite forms. Nonconvex forms use the same vertices as the convex forms, but have intersecting facets. Infinite forms tessellate a one lower dimensional Euclidean space.

Infinite forms can be extended to tessellate a hyperbolic space. Hyperbolic space is like normal space at a small scale, but parallel lines diverge at a distance. This allows vertex figures to have negative angle defects, like making a vertex with 7 equilateral triangles and allowing it to lie flat. It cannot be done in a regular plane, but can be at the right scale of a hyperbolic plane.

See Also:

Pauli's World Clock

• Divine Contenders: Wolfgang Pauli and the Symmetry of the World

Introduction to Ideas Roadshow Talks

The Power of Principles - A conversation with Nima Arkani-Hamed

And more Ideas Roadshow's YouTube videos 

See:

•  Ideas RoadsShow

The Old Wise Man

This post is materializing because of a post written by a Don McLeod on a article written at NPR 13.7 Cosmos and Culture called, " Facing Cancer, With A Robot Surgeon By My Side, by  Barbara J. King.

Don McLeod writes,

When I had cancer it appeared in my dreams as a bear.This probably sounds odd to you, crackpot even, given your background in the rational field of science, but dream symbols and science are not mutually exclusive. As my ultimately successful treatment progressed the bear began to reduce in size from an adult to a cub. Once cured, I was still anxious about the possibility of the cancer recurring, which prompted another dream which I will relate: I was out for a walk. I left the city and found myself walking on a trail in the wooded hills. It was a pleasant enough walk but at some point it occurred to me that if I were to encounter a bear on the trail I would be in trouble because I had no weapon, and if I climbed a tree the bear would climb up after me. As I pondered my vulnerability I heard footsteps approaching from behind. Turning around I saw a tall, thin man of about eighty years wearing a hat. He appeared spry and was long of stride. He appeared to me to be someone who had walked the outdoors for many years. So I stopped him and related my concern about bears and asked him how he handled such encounters. He told me bears posed no problem for him because he always carried "these". Then he opened his left hand which was full of vegetables of different varieties. He told me that whenever he encounters a bear he tosses the vegetables off to the side of the trail, causing the bear to chase after the veggies and thereby leaving him unmolested. Then I woke up. Dreams can often be confusing and difficult to interpret but his one required no deep thinking. The old hiker was the Wise Old Man, the seminal archetype of the collective unconscious. As we say in the hood, "This old dude be knowing s**t." I took his advice and became a vegetable hound, and now, thirteen years later I remain cancer free. The vegetables didn't cure my cancer of course, modern medical technology did that. But my unconscious, through dreams and images gave me insight about my cancer. In my case it was reassuring, yours may or may not be. Nonetheless, you may be entering the biggest knock-down-drag-out fight of your life and you will want all the information and help you can get. Your unconscious psyche will help you so pay attention to your dreams, write them down, and see what they tell you. You're a scientist. Observe your psyche and remain open to possibilities. Psyche is as much a part of Nature as everything else. (I add bold for emphasis)

I of course sympathize with Barbara J. King for the rode ahead and wish her all the best in the surgery. The purpose of this post is about how as individuals the use of power in symbols as relayed in Don's dream are effective at describing a process that was unfolding in him and the progression toward wellness being demonstrated when he saids, "As my ultimately successful treatment progressed the bear began to reduce in size from an adult to a cub."

This post is not about something you have to do in order to cure an illness, but more about what occurs on an everyday level that such events can travel deep inside you whether you are aware of the effect this has on you or not.

I saw correspondence in the type and illustration of the dream. It came from a earlier time in my life, that was very much similar in its subjectivity. This happen when I was quite young, and was already entertaining what it was I wanted to do with my life.

So the Old Wise Man becomes a symbol of sorts, and for those of you who have had similar experience, this is a profound imagery that is encapsulated in an old man with a white cloak and long white beard. How traditional then this figure that he is to reside in one's own head,  and that we are in a sense able to project the wisdom of self for our viewing.

So thus,  such imagery is to encapsulate something that is quite powerful as to convey knowledge that works to alleviate the concerns that runs deep in our souls. It is an answer to the question of what it is that is happening with our everyday life awareness. This is a consequence of daily living that somehow transcends the every day world we see  as a revelation that runs counter to that normal objective world.

The correspondence and power that was given was an understanding on such a deep level that it became a catalyst of sorts for the examination of such things in other people. Don's comment was a recognition for me of this powerful level of understanding that took place  as it was of a healing that occurred for him.

So also I added the labels of Socrates and Daemon at the bottom of this post. This was to exemplify facets of this understanding which grew from the experience I had at an age of about 12 years old. I also relay this information in a post given with regard to the Park.

The Park was written to show, that levels of perception that run deep inside are equal factors to which information may be drawn into oneself, given the framework of the reality that you had created. The Old Wise represents an aspect of your higher self which is to say that consciousness at that level does not find itself impeded from gaining true knowledge of those beyond ourselves to have then actually answer events in our every day lives.

So what you have done in essence is created a script that can become intelligible for the offering of information beyond the scope of inherent thinking suited to that daily process.

So it was important that I also examine efforts to help our minds be taken to levels of consciousness that may impart such opportunities for information to be given.  The basis for this thought process was to believe,  for me,  that all information will and has always existed.  It is that we only had to be reminded of such correspondences to say, such information even exists, but that such processes exist also in us all.

Hangout with Cern

Hangout with CERN and TED-Ed - Dimensions Multiplied

Neutrino Events in IceCube Strings

Neutrino Events-A compilation of some cool and unique neutrino events captured by the IceCube Neutrino Observatory.

See Also:

• GRB 130427A: Highest-energy Light Ever Detected