What if we already know the fundamentals?

Music from single lines of C-code...

"Dutch physicist and string theorist Erik Verlinde has generated a self-contained, logical derivation of the equivalence principle based on the starting assumption of a holographic universe. Given this situation, gravity would not be a true fundamental force as is currently thought but instead an "emergent property" related to entropy. Verlinde's approach to explaining gravity apparently leads naturally to the correct observed strength of dark energy."

http://arxiv.org/pdf/1001.0785v1.pdf

In a larger and more speculative sense, the holographic principle suggests that the entire universe can be seen as a two-dimensional information structure "painted" on the cosmological horizon, such that the three dimensions we observe are only an effective description at macroscopic scales and at low energies.

"Space is in the first place a device introduced to describe the positions and movements of particles. Space is therefore literally just a storage space for information. This information is naturally associated with matter. Given that the maximal allowed information is finite for each part of space, it is impossible to localize a particle with infinite precision at a point of a continuum space. In fact, points and coordinates arise as derived concepts."

Begins to sound a lot like the uncertainty principle arising from digital information processing. I would say this makes it increasingly plausible that fundamental information processing in the universe (at the holographic screen) is fundamentally deterministic.

"Thus we conclude that acceleration is related to an entropy gradient. This will be one of our main principles: inertia is a consequence of the fact that a particle in rest will stay in rest because there are no entropy gradients."

"We identified a cause, a mechanism, for gravity. It is driven by differences in entropy, in whatever way needed, and a consequence of the statistical averaged random dynamics at the microscopic level. The reason why gravity has to keep track of energies as well as entropy differences is now clear. It has to, because this is what causes motion!"

"We are entering an unknown territory in which space does not exist to begin with."

I love this paper :D

"The assumptions we made have been natural: they fit with existing ideas and are supported by several pieces of evidence."

It appears someone had similar thoughts to me when it comes to information in the universe. I hinted about these a little bit in my entries "Nothing defies reason" and "If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.". Of course the paper is kind of old news already, but I hadn't really read it before.

The paper presents a rather plausible model in my opinion for gravity as an emergent entropic force in the universe and supposedly the same idea explains dark energy as well.

http://www.science20.com/hammock_physicist/it_bit_how_get_rid_dark_energy

If all this is true then our understanding of fundamental physics of this universe might in fact be rather complete in certain ways. Though we should still figure out the rules of the holographic screens.

...in other news today, philosophy is bullshit, according to none other than David Hume...

http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb/Beowulf/axioms/axioms/node4.html

Me playing with subwoofers isn't a waste of time either, even when it comes to physics...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilot_wave

Perhaps the simple truth is that there are no paradoxes or unanswerable questions. The universe is simply a deterministic digital computer and it like everything else exists due to necessity, kind of like the value of pi. After all when we get right down to fundamentals, no coherent alternative to determinism has even ever been suggested.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holographic_principle

In logic and philosophy, an argument is an attempt to persuade someone of something, by giving reasons for accepting a particular conclusion as evident. Any rational postulate must have empirical predictive power over alternatives. Present me some repeatable empirical evidence to justify your postulate or you will have failed to persuade me and along with your failure to do so, your argument has failed by definition as well.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/hallq/2013/05/an-index-of-why-william-lane-craig-is-a-dishonest-genocide-defending-creepy-homophobe/

-So, at some point we had nothing.

-No, at no point did we have nothing.

http://www.madore.org/~david/computers/quine.html

You rush a miracle man, you get rotten miracles.

"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions. Their lives a mimicry. Their passions a quotation." - Oscar Wilde

"Life is too short to be taken seriously" - Oscar Wilde

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia

Seems to me this is simply a weakness of natural language. The word description to me is simply information about the way things moved (when someone saw the color red). Experience on the other hand is totally different set of cause and effect in the brain and can only happen with a proper cause which obviously is quite different from the cause like analytical information (obviously doesn't result in the same brain state as the real thing). To me there doesn't appear to be anything particularly puzzling about this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pragmatism

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"I am not interested in erecting a building, but in presenting to myself the foundations of all possible buildings." - Wittgenstein

Why is the sky the limit, when there are footprints on the moon?

"The best revenge is not to be like that." - Marcus Aurelius

“It is every man's obligation to put back into the world at least the equivalent of what he takes out of it.” - Albert Einstein

“Travel far enough, you meet yourself.” -David Mitchell (Cloud Atlas)

It's not who you are underneath, but what you do that defines you.

It's not always a matter of how smart or talented you are, sometimes it's a matter of how badly you're willing to fight for it.

"The only reason you should look into someone else's bowl is to make sure they have enough."

Never judge anyone on anything that they have no control over.

Power does not corrupt, it is magnetic to the corruptible. - Frank Herbert

Never carry in your mind what fits in your briefcase.

"Reach what you cannot" - N. Kazantzakis

People may not deserve your respect, but they'll never learn to become worthy of that respect unless you show them an example first.

"Wait and Hope."

Things change and so they should.

They say happiness is learning to love what's in front of you. Perhaps I'm a fool, but I have a feeling that is something a quitter would say. Like giving up, I don't like the taste of that. I'd rather fight until the bitter end than accept a mundane existence.

We all have goals, some people just settle for less and some people never reach their goals. The point is to be able to choose what is in front of you and to make it something great. What is worth it and what is noble is a matter of opinion. Personally I'm not afraid of what people think of me, that is irrelevant. What I might be afraid of though, is that I might never get what I want. And yet to pretend that I don't want it, would be self-deception.

I'm an introvert and I don't see why I would want to be anything other than what I am. If I don't like certain activities which are normally considered extroverted, I'd prefer other people to change instead of me so that I could have fun my way. It's not like I hate all the people, I'm just saddened, bored and sometimes annoyed by people who don't love the things I do and that they love the things that I hate, if nothing else, it makes me a bit lonely.

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Learning refers to the process of observation and the statistical significance of that observation. Learned information doesn't have to be true and most often it is not, since learned information is most of the time only an approximation of the reality or a single narrow view of it, it can also be completely false. Learning only implies a gain of some new knowledge regardless if it is true of false.

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Luckily when it comes down to it, that fortune is a fallacy. Understanding does not imply a perfect model. It implies a model which approximates the behavior of the whole to fair extent and converges if expanded. We can understand what makes the brain "tick" even if we cannot grasp the entire complexity of the system. Of course no system with finite information content can ever perfectly understand another system with larger information content, but that's not what things are all about. It's like a jpg-picture, a lossy compressor. We can still approach perfection even if we'll never quite reach it.

They: The quote did not imply the understanding of a simplified or approximate model of the brain...so yes, understanding in this case does mean understanding the truth of it or of a perfect model if you will.

I disagree. Natural language contains that implication by default unless otherwise mentioned. It should be obvious from the way natural language is used in everyday life. I would even argue that nothing at all is and never will be understood absolutely perfectly. Absolute knowledge beyond things like "I think therefore I am" is impossible. They aren't by nature similar to understanding of observable things. I find it strange that anyone would even think absolutely perfect model is something which makes any coherent sense whatsoever in this sort of context.

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This is just an example of how natural language is vague, there is nothing particularly interesting about it. There are different categories to which irrelevant can refer to. The idea of god is irrelevant to the fundamental understanding of the universe even if it is not irrelevant to the understanding of human history and sociological aspects of the peoples faith to such a construct. The term god can be a placeholder or a name for peoples behavioral characteristics, faith etc. however as a name to a natural phenomenon it is totally irrelevant since it doesn't have any connection whatsoever to anything observable or identifiable neither directly or indirectly.

It is always more difficult to fight against faith than against knowledge.

But in the end... there are no genuine philosophical problems.

"The main point is the theory of what can be expressed by propositions - i.e. by language - (and, which comes to the same thing, what can be thought) and what can not be expressed by propositions, but only shown; which, I believe, is the cardinal problem of philosophy."

http://researchinprogress.tumblr.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainfuck