[AntonioLao]

Anti-TOE is the study of non-being while TOE studies being. But what are beings? A good example is a human being. A more difficult one to understand is a supernatural being. What are the distinctions, if there is any, between a natural being and a supernatural one?

A natural being should be describable by science: physics, chemistry, and biology. In this sense electron, proton, neutron are natural beings. Since atoms are formed from these stable beings (neutron is stable inside the nucleus but free neutron dies in about 15 minutes roughly the average attention span of a person) the chemical elements are all natural beings and by association humans are made of these elements therefore humans are also natural beings. However, human beings are special above all the other animals since they possess the duality of mind and body. The body can be described by science but the mind still eludes understanding regardless of many attempts. But for now, human beings can be classified as super-being of rank-1 and all the inanimate natural beings as super-being of rank-0. The animals are ranked between 0 and 1.

As rank-1 supernatural beings, humans are endowed with sign of intelligence. This resides in a part of the brain as memory. It has the power to remember, to learn from past mistakes, to recognize patterns of self-similarity, to formulate abstract concepts, to form objective functions as patterns for optimizing the use of space and time, 3-space and 1-time dimension. 3-space has 6 degrees of freedom (DOF) while 1-time has 2 degrees of freedom. That is a total of 8 directional properties. Categorically, electron, proton, neutron, atoms, and complex molecules are all classified as super-being of rank-0. Rank-0 allows the flexibility for the twisting, stretching, and compressing of the space-time fabric making up these beings. The process of dimensional level compactification as level of existence (LOE) allows the reduction of degree of freedom say from 6 down to 5 to 4 to 3 to 2 to 1 to 0. The odd space compact LOE: S5-3-1 forms atoms, leptons, and quarks. The even S6-4-2-0 forms the four fundamental forces. Since there are only 2 DOFs for time, T1 and T2, there exist two groups of reality of matter and antimatter, of energy and dark energy. A complete TOE must describe both groups but the anti-TOE only need to describe the singular complement of non-being.

Can lower ranked supernatural beings evolve into higher ranked being? Says from rank-half-witted animals to rank-1 humans? Darwin said so. How about rank-1 humans evolve into rank-2 immortals, rank-3, and rank-4, ad infinitum?

[Guille]

The difference between natural and supernatural beings is that the first exist, the others don't. Nothing but nature exists, for nature is everything. In that sense, we could say the TOE is about natural beings and the Anti-TOE (or 'inverse': &TOE) is about supernatural (or to that matter, infranatural) beings.

Humans are symbolic beings (as said Cassirer IN Philosophical Antropology). We tend to say that what differentiates us to the rest of the animals, that makes us be 'superior' to them in the sense that there is a difference of grade (the one of which Deleuze speaks in Bergsonism), is that we are rational animals with consciousness, logic, sense of truth, morals and other properties to the attribute of the so-called 'mind' (which is itself a paradoxical concept). But in fact the truth is that what makes us special is that we have a difference of nature (qualitative) that we can have a different nature of existence, not order of existence, from animals, due to our minds. The consequence of this is that not only we are different in that we are rational [although sometimes it's hard to find rationality: politics (fascism, capitalism, stalinism), economy (money, trade), global issues.. A long list), but that we are different as we are symbolical, that is, our culture not only has rationality (science), but also reprsentation (art) and ideal creation (philosophy).

[harmonygirl]

Antonio,
can you explain degrees of freedom to me? I am not sure I agree that humans are special above all other animals. We're different, yes, but applying a value judgment to this is just a reflection of our arrogance, I think. I guess your ranking comes back to what we consider intelligence to be. It may be urban legend, but there are whales with maps of the entire ocean floor in their brains. Does this make them less intelligent? We discovered the language of the dolphins a couple of decades ago. Does this mean they were unintelligent or we were because we hadn't figured out how to talk to them? Your definition of intelligence certainly fits with animals. I definitely believe that more primitive beings can evolve into less primitive beings, because form dictates awareness and thought. in order for the more evolved beings to be self-aware, they must have awareness that understands less primitive beings and hence encompasses them. I'm not sure, however, of applicability of your set of classifications.

[Mr. Nobody]

In my theory without proof, I postulate that the mind can not exist devoid of the body. It is part of a progressive emergence, a natural consequence of matter organizing itself to ever higher degrees, from inanimate objects to single cells to plants, animals and us. Life developed due to gravity, a lumping together of units a tendency of all things to congregate and organize to oppose the cosmic expansion and local entropy.
We are all ranked 0 (me at least, lol)

[AntonioLao]

Originally Posted by GUILLE the attribute of the so-called 'mind' (which is itself a paradoxical concept).

The possession of a mind is what raised a natural being into a supernatural being. Since mind is supernatural ergo it cannot be comprehended by natural terms like math and physics. It is really transcendental like the number p which is truly the one and only irrational number as the ratio of the circumference over the diameter of all circles.

[AntonioLao]

Originally Posted by harmonygirl can you explain degrees of freedom to me?

In human terms, it is the same as the freedom to act, free will and volition. In math and physics, degrees of freedom are the directional properties of vector quantities maybe also tensor quantities but tensors deal with dimension higher than three becoming more abstract and difficult for me to explain.

About intelligence linked to the mind, it is beyond human logic or math or physics to analyze it. We know we have it but we don't know how we got it from. It seems we are born with it. It could be a gift or it could be an emergence by the process of evolution. If that is true then other species had equal chances of going through this evolutionary process. The dinosaurs have ruled for millions of years yet there is no fossil records that indicate they could have prevented their own catastrophic demise. If we cannot prevent our own forthcoming demise then we are no more intelligence than the dinosaurs.

[harmonygirl]

I guess I am confused because "degrees" implies something certain and measureable, which is inconsistent with my notion of freedom, free will, etc. I am having a great deal of difficulty concieving freedom vectors. Are the vectors cutting through freedom? comprised of freedom? argh! my brain is melting...

[AntonioLao]

Originally Posted by harmonygirl Are the vectors cutting through freedom?

No. They are the freedom or the decision for a course of action or motion.

[Guille]

Originally Posted by AntonioLao The possession of a mind is what raised a natural being into a supernatural being. Since mind is supernatural ergo it cannot be comprehended by natural terms like math and physics. It is really transcendental like the number p which is truly the one and only irrational number as the ratio of the circumference over the diameter of all circles.

There are a big big big number of posible studies of nature, we should not be that foundationalist to say that because physics and maths can't explain the mind, no study can. There are psycologists, philosophers of mind, anthropolgists, neurobiologists... Nothing is superior to nature, for nature is everything and reality, this includes the existences and non-existence, the worlds of the body and of the mind. And aren't phi, sqrt 2, sqrt 3, sqrt 5, sqrt 7, e... Also irrational numbers?

[harmonygirl]

Okay, so this is not a quantification of the property of something (like freedom), it is the quantification of the acual choice(s)-so not the movie, but what's contained in the movie?