Going to try out this forum

[final.theory.chick]

Hey there!
Hi there, I'm a young girl in my twenties, totally into Final Theory and physics. Travelled to Switzerland to work on large Hadron Collider and am a MTI student. stumbled across a book due to be released in a few months with new perspectives on Final Theory.It's called Nature's Watchmaker by a South African, John Thompson. It seems like its pretty good stuff and he's suprisingly on the ball! desperate to get some opinions! haven't tried any other forums but this seems like a good place to start! here is some general info on the book:

In Nature’s Watchmaker John Thompson seeks to provide an answer to the enigma that has been engaging scientists and philosophers since the study of time began: a complete description of all the physical processes governing the universe from its creation to its ultimate destruction.

His new theory confronts the major issues currently faced by scientists including gravity, the perplexing dark matter and even more baffling dark energy. It explains why particles exist, why they have their specific properties and predicts exactly the values of certain constants previously only obtainable by experiment. The theory shows that despite the universe apparently expanding at an ever-increasing rate it will eventually enter a contraction epoch. Unlike current theories it combines all the effects found in both the microscopic (atoms) and macroscopic (stars, black holes, galaxies) universes in one simply derived equation.

Intriguingly, this new theory even answers the ultimate question: why does anything exist in the first place?

hit me back with some thoughts and more links if you're interested!

[SteveA]

I didn't want to sidetrack other threads much but I wanted to post some mathematical art I'd worked on (I don't have the main ones I created on this computer, but I found some files and things I'd been working on and put this together to give some ideas):



About 2/3rds of these images are custom algorithms I wrote, though many of the best images I have are over 50 megapixels and HUGE files! (They're really mean to be printed on a wide scale printer for a poster or wall etc.)

It turns out that basically all of these images are constructed from a single thread of computation (which in many ways is obvious simply due to the fact that a single thread of execution on a processor can render them, but there are many other correlations with physical processes and most the custom algorithms I used are basically showing the density or strength of a field in space with various distortions applied to the space - so you can map the images to things like magnetic fields or material densities etc.)

When you break it all down, every object that we could give a precise definition for could be reconfigured into a string that's rolled into a closed loop - a circle (but it's twisted and deformed).

The problem is that there's no time or change inherent in this and physical reality could be described differently but instead as a dynamic process in which this thread of computation bends and morphs dynamically as new elements are added to it (and it makes perfect sense in some ways because what ultimately determines what the universe looks like? Well the observer, because there are various filters placed over what phenomenon can be detected and coherently recognized that exist as observer properties - trees "see" the earth, air and the sun, ants see ant hills, queen ants and food , science sees communication between people and consciousness sees conscious qualities that interface with the universe via. thought/computation/DNA - the properties of the physical universe are similar to the properties of DNA ... though "energy" extends beyond this toward an unknown that appears to be something that there's no way to even begin to describe - it's nothing specific at all, yet it's also larger than the boundaries of imagination.

[SteveA]

I put together another little montage



Almost half of these were done using tools created by others (it's technically not cheating ... but when the styles are ones original forms, it's the most fun )

When I get my other computer out of storage, there are some other types of algorithms that I can show.

What I really want to do is construct an algorithm that varies dynamically across space and merges various classes/styles/textures etc., all into a fluid landscape ... and then if I can figure out to map these to music as well ... dang that would rock! I think every single image here has unlimited resolution to which it can be computed and the parameters can actually be morphed (though rendering at high resolution isn't fast enough for realtime, yet, though there are some possibilities there and if you can get fractal/procedural music going with a bassline like a backrub to go along with it ... ahh Now that would be fun! If someone can figure out how to add a few more senses to mix, now that's virtuality - if it looks, smells and tastes like the real thing, why not? (Recommendation: Set the timer to kick you out after a while so you can add more details later)

[sillysally]

I want a rug that looks like Steve's art. I finally see a design I like and go figure, it's not on a rug. I really like the top left one from the 2:41pm post. All of them aren't opened yet, can you resize them in paint? Just left click, open with - paint. Resize in image. I saw you needed some help somewhere. I like the bottom left one too, now that I can see it an hour later... Just teasing, phuck I can't even see what I am typing becuaause this page keeps going on and on and on.

[SB_UK]

It feels as though your images are about to open the door to creating ever more beautiful images and music.

That you've located 'quality'

- which'll require our own 'quality' sensing neural machinery to 'grow'
- to evolve in order to 'keep up'.

That'd be kinda' cool -

- if we could develop our own quality and quality of life -
by training ourselves to ever more complex visual and aural stimuli.

Grafting on robocop like appendages and genetically modified snack dispensers would appear to miss the point of what it is to be human.

Yours Neurally,

Ummm.........

~*~

Our peripheral neural machinery -
- delivering ever more complex signals for pattern recognition within our cerebellar tree

- increasingly more complex patterns exposed to our senses - ever more complex patterns introduced gently to our CNS
->- leading to ->-
increased complexity (of network) centrally.

Education - but fun.

[SteveA]

I want a rug that looks like Steve's art. I finally see a design I like and go figure, it's not on a rug. I really like the top left one from the 2:41pm post. All of them aren't opened yet, can you resize them in paint? Just left click, open with - paint. Resize in image. I saw you needed some help somewhere. I like the bottom left one too, now that I can see it an hour later... Just teasing, phuck I can't even see what I am typing becuaause this page keeps going on and on and on.

I can't post them full size on line - they're too large of files, so I had to compress a lot of things, but I can e-mail an image file.

BTW, that top-left one I called "Whirlds" It's a 4 meg file and 3300x2650 so I can't post it, but I can e-mail it.

I called the two on the lower left "Dragon Feathers" and "Bramble Babies"

[SteveA]

It feels as though your images are about to open the door to creating ever more beautiful images and music.

Well thank you much ... if you twist my arm ever so slightly, I can post some music I've written (if I can figure out how to upload it). They're not bad, but I've really wanted to create a system that would learn to write custom music tailored by interactive feedback (in the end, just as there is no single perfect image, there is no single perfect song, though I guess if you string the images and music together and closely try to track that dynamically change then it's not really one image or one song but a dynamic collection tracking some ideal)

That you've located 'quality'

Well I dug around and found some pretty gems. Something else made them, but I'm happy that I can appreciate them and have been able to find at least a few.

My father is an artist, but much of anything beyond a stickman and my drawing skills peter out

That's ok, I can paint by the numbers though and grow pictures instead. It's very interesting though in that it's quite a bit like chemistry - elements will react in different ways with each other and every composite is unique and has unique properties. The same is true with mathematical operations in that some "want" to diverge and others pressure for confinement or oscillations and as the complexity interleaved in a space grows it becomes more chaotic - being able to ride that "edge" where you get hints of all the diversity would seem ideal to me, but it's hard to balance things in that way, but I keep thinking there's just this one simple idea that could "get it" and there'd be flowing pathways diverging and reconnecting, dissolving/diffusing chaotically and "magically" reconverging elsewhere etc. and then to fit that all into a single picture that can be panned to any scale (though there may be a paradox in that ... hmmm, interesting thought - see that's the fun part - discovering your own desires and learning about yourself and then seeing if you can bring that out into representations that are unique and tangible - that's probably what art is about - finding a way to communicate feelings, ideas, concepts and experiences that in a sense so not physically exist - they're memories and thoughts and desires etc., but people can walk down the street day to day and hardly notice the sea that lies beneath it).

- which'll require our own 'quality' sensing neural machinery to 'grow'
- to evolve in order to 'keep up'.

Yes, nature appears to have posted a minimum speed limit sign and below that she nips at the heels. Well, maybe someday I'll file a complaint with whoever runs the show, but so far I can't really complain - the cost of admission isn't too high (though I guess you've got to be careful of those hidden strings in the contract ).

That'd be kinda' cool -

- if we could develop our own quality and quality of life -
by training ourselves to ever more complex visual and aural stimuli.

It's interesting to consider what other possible perceptual properties could exist. In a sense they already have properties that are potentially infinite - for example, though we might say that some color is a specific wavelength and only a finite number of photons convey it, there's extra information in there when you consider the conscious quality of senses - they don't appear to be explainable in numeric terms in any way, though the organzation of them could be, in a sense predetermined in that certain interrelationships between them need to exist, but if we, for example swapped two colors, someone could still go on about their everyday life just fine - all the physical information is still there and need be unaltered in any way - the conscious perception is different though (notice that this is a potential manner for consciousness to relive a past but not alter physical events nor cause a loop in time - you could "count" with perceptual qualities, if there was a manner to quantize them - though that appears something that a person would have to learn for themself as noone else could determine this for you).

Grafting on robocop like appendages and genetically modified snack dispensers would appear to miss the point of what it is to be human.

I agree with the basic sentiment, but then again what is specifically human? A child is human yet grows and experiences more in life past childhood. Is there some point that humanity can't grow past? I recognize that there things that are destructive and in this sense, those things are limits that can't be "grown past", but if we were to assume that life goes on into the future for thousands of years etc., is there a limit beyond which humanity could not pass?

I recognize that realistically it might be lucky if we last another thousand years and I guess in many ways that could be seen as a product of technology, but similarly technology has also allowed many more people to live, so in terms of life-years technology doesn't appear to have been detrimental so far.

Yours Neurally,

Ummm.........

~*~

Our peripheral neural machinery -
- delivering ever more complex signals for pattern recognition within our cerebellar tree

Something I've thinking about is similar to the idea of entropy and space filling for experiences.

Imagine for a second that there was a robot with a single light sensor - it can just "see" white or black and that's the entirety of its possible experiences.

In this case there could be no more than 2 possible moments in "life" for it. The black state and the white state (I don't think time can be confined but we could say that some entity perceiving life via. that form would only be able to witness two moments within that context).

Notice that the space of possible experiences needs to be at least as large as the time over which those experiences have occured. (Doing everything possible would be filling all the perceptual space of possibilities with experiences, but the size of that space of possibilities is determined by the perceptual quantity or precision to make distinctions between these - so it implies that for humanity to live to a ripe old age a ripe old ages worth of distinct perceptions need to exist, tough I think the growth of this space of possibilities is factorially related to the quantities of distinct perceptions, if there existed a perfect memory - which basically just means that the addition of new perceptions, though unbounded over an unbounded time can slow in growth rate or similarly that every increase in perceptual "precision" or diversity is a super-exponential growth in the space of possible experiences and time)

- increasingly more complex patterns exposed to our senses - ever more complex patterns introduced gently to our CNS
->- leading to ->-
increased complexity (of network) centrally.

I think, in the end, the roadmap has been laid out already but that actually doesn't deny free will - there are a quite a few choices to be made when presented with infinite possibilities - specifically when or where those decisions were made appears beyond logic to determine - there's always a possible unforeseen chaotic divergence in the next moment.

Education - but fun.

Thanks for the reply, SB.

[SteveA]

For anyone interested, here's a song I wrote also:

Museca (MP3)
http://www.supload.com/listen?s=9PfEdV

(This one is just "freestyling", no mathematical algorithms attached ... that one I'm still working on ).

[labelwench]

Museca.......whimsical, contemplative; a bit of reflective melancholy.....some unexpected change of pace and unusual chords interjected.....anticipatory,...accepting....flows nicely...

I quite like it.

[SteveA]

Museca.......whimsical, contemplative; a bit of reflective melancholy.....some unexpected change of pace and unusual chords interjected.....anticipatory,...accepting....flows nicely...

I quite like it.

Considerate, thoughtful, detailed, nice worded and appreciated, Ms. Label (Seems you read my mind when I wrote it)