Classifying knowledge by energy level

22.v.1430

The various domains of knowledge could be expressed as the functional domain for some knowledge measure function.

by way of example, the study of molecular biological systems that involve low levels of energy would be ranked lower than the study of the fluid dynamics of a waterfall, where the energies measured are much higher. And so the molecular biology would be to the left of waterfall dynamics on an axis or scale of energy levels.

The study of cosmology would probably one of the highest on the knowledge domain axis; and ironically for science, and by definition, theology would occupy the position on the axis with the highest energy level of all - the existence that transcends and contains the natural world and beyond. ad hoc schemes/heuristics to determine the energy level of a given knowledge domain seem feasible.

The initial motivation was to play around with the idea of an integrable knowledge mesaure - eg, a knowledge area function. This presented a challenge which was to find both a measure of knowledge and a metric (to define the domain and distance on the domain of that knowledge measure function, or knowledge area function).

some discussion is at knowledge_area_function.


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things life teaches dept: if the universe were an algorithm

22.V.1430

if the entire universe is an algorithm,
then its entire run and outcome set must be known in advance.

there are good reasons why it is an algorithm, and not only as a collection of cellular automata primitives.

it is an alg, as a process that is controlled by sets of constraints - which are the physical laws.

even for a chaotic process, the constraints of physics , or of nature, apply.

it is an algorithm also in the sense of a dynamic model, we know it is controlled or self-regulating/controlling because the persistence of form of some of its objects , like us, despite a continual flow of matter "through" us. That was pointed out by Wiener in Cybernetics

Since a state function is defined (even if it is unknown) by the domain/range, and because a process itself is a set of state or transitions functions, it mus be viewed as a design, ie no different from other state transition machines, or state machines, or automata - save in complexity of course.

The implication is clear. As an algorithm, a formal (vs. natural) automatic machine, it is designed and like any well-designed system, its behavior and outcomes must have been anticipated and fully understood before its "deployment" :)



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what is pneumatics?

25.I.1430

Pneumatics is a certain outlook on knowledge that will take it seriously when it is told things like God blows a life giving breath into living things , and other things which to a "pure reason" scientist are fantastical.

It is a believer's "science" or rather epistemology. For its aim or pretension, it seeks to integrate religious beliefs and scientific knowledge, putting either in the context of the other.

Effectively, pneumatics replaces the a priori assumption of atheism or materialism - alias "pure reason" to some - with the a priori assumption/choice of theism and axioms of religious belief.

Returning to the example pneumatics would accept the notions of a spirit in living organisms and even try to account for it in as empirical or analytical a way as possible.

Thus it will note much like scientists - or indeed elementary school pupils - the things that set "life" apart from inanimate things even though both classes are constituted of the same matter. Namely that they are endowed with complexes of autonomous self-regulating mechanisms. It would note this is the most-physical description possible yet of a soul, a sort of ordering or organizing principle endowed by the Divine.

Unlike modern "science", instead of saying spirit cannot be seen therefore it does not exist until proven otherwise, pneumatology (or pneumatics) having accepted its existence as a given , would say that the closest we've come to seeing "soul" is in that it is closely associated with those homeostatic processes unique to life.

In a further sweep we could even say the "fast" homeostatic mechanisms of life - which must be the result of spirit, also belong to a spectrum or processes that also includes those subitted by inanimate matter - paving the way to rationalising another religious belief - that inanimate matter is not so inanimate after all and that it too is endowed with such things as consciousness comfort and discomfort and so on.


We can recall the italicized greek word "biota" indicates a duality perhaps precisely that of the presence of matter and of something else, the soul in living organisms.

In other words, pneumatics is much ado about how and what religion-believing scientists really think, in the privacy of their thoughts, or the security of their home countries' campuses - not in international symposia or western academic campuses.

It would thus have to admit that it is not "science" in the modern academic sense of the word of hard or natural science. Nor it is necessary to call it "pseudoscience". It simply is a paradigm of knowledge , or better, an epistemology (ie, a set of knowledge-defining and knowledge-ordering principles).

Attempting to express religious beliefs and scientific knowledge in terms of each other, and reconcile both in a coherent body of knowledge also leads to such endeavours as reasoned apologetics, eg for ritual and other things, much like the ancient practice of "kalam", but hopefully i ways that are a lot more careful, and knowledgeable.












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draft notes to the student

Seek a good teacher. For several reasons. Self-study is only good up to a point, beyond which, an experienced mentor is required to dispell confusion and misunderstandings, as well as to advise on the proper curricular course. Otherwise much time can be wasted, understanding mangled, and learning not achieved. There is no substitute in learning for the experience of the expert teacher. In the Yi Jing it is written , "Whoever hunts deer without the forester. Only loses his way in the forest." (Hexagram 3 屯 Chun , Difficulty at the beginning, Difficulties). The good teacher crucially protects from being exposed to matters for which the student is not ready. Exposure to some subjects without proper preparation risks losing first impressions to misconceptions or other barriers to comprehension, necessitating a laborious repair.

texts,understanding: sometimes it matters more to go through the text even without understanding it, than to go through it only with a full understanding. Understanding also improves with repeated reading of the passage. Here the case is
where a higher value is placed on developing a familiarity with a given topic,
rather than fully assimilating its every aspect in text.

it helps a process of reinforcement when reading is repeated later with new information

sometimes, by itself, without added information, understanding seeps in with time.

rote: repeated reading helps learning by rote (by heart, 7ifzh).

Anecdote says that the tax of learning is teaching it. Igws that good science should be shared. The sharing and imparting of truth is of general benefit.

text,understanding: repeated reading helps understanding a great deal. Revisiting a book after some time with or without accumulating new knowledge sheds new light on the subject.

problems: "if you cannot solve the problems in the text you've studied then you've learned nothing." <- wish i could remember where i saw that. Problems are a key ingredient in physics and math texts and many of them present new theorems corollaries , applications etc.

The student should fulfill one's end of the pact with God. The pact is by default already there, built-in, and always redeemable on the part of God.

texts,pedagogy: on a given subject, the texts and discourse from different academic cultures (countries) offer different perspectives. For example compare the standard description of the Pauli exclusion principle common in English textbooks, with its counterpart in the Russian ones. As another example compare the kinds of problems presented in curricula for college-level Calculus I and those found in American textbooks and presentations.

Thus while a subject like physics is the same enabling germans and others to develop quantum mechanics that agree with formalisms developed by englishmen, there are still important differences in pedagogic approaches and in the explanations and descriptions given of the same phenomena.

God provides insight, understanding, discoveries , new directions or things that suddenly come into view, and is the provider of all the tools and aspects of learning. He enjoins and accepts supplications petitions and requests , and such we should turn to him for advancemnt utility and benefit in one's science.

texts: In some cases, looking up references in unknown languages (even in unknown writing systems) can offer non textual information such as formulas in standard latin notation that would be missing from other familiar texts, or in diagrams, schemas, and other visual or nontextual information, particularly with video or other graphic media.

problems: visualize the problem [Tipler]; analyze problems geometrically [Mandelbrot].

study,environment,discipline: scholarship is greatly served by a healthy physical regimen in sport and nutrition. in the few times that system was on , studying was a lot better.

from Zosimos who also recommends nighttime work: celibacy. The lack of it may have an adverse effect on intellectual spiritual and magickal power and prowess.

study: study work and mental focus is of a better quality at night time. a reversal of one's biological clock is unhealthy however . A workaround is to wake exceedingly early , and to redistribute sleep to two sections earlier on in the evening. Thus sleep a little after dusk and wake up around three in the morning , or between that and four; a good third of the night before dawn, the last third. It is during this time that both spiritual and scholarly work are most amenable. Particularly spiritual. As the scholarly work can then extend into early morning. Indeed as many would agree, early morning study is the best in terms of quality and clarity. This , coupled with quick review before sleep in the evening , would assure hasty arrival at the student's goal. ... Read more

collective unconscious wants gopher

My first encounter with the Internet was via Gopher ca. '91 - '93. I noticed its yielding of relevance to HTTP even before the Internet Commercialization Act of 1995, and more assuredly so afterward. Nostalgia however kept "gopher" hovering in the cloud way in the back of the mind. A couple months ago, I started getting an itch to look up gopher on Wikipedia in anticipation of finding where there is still access.**

Well, after zoning out of the idea every time it hit me when i'm busy over the past two months or so, I looked up gopher at wikipedia.

** There was anticipation because of course there must be access to Gopher still (it's been made GNU GPL anyway, i thought it had always been "open"! but it wasn't) as there are NNTP servers. Because there always should be NNTP servers and every TCP/IP App layer protocol should be kept. This must be contentious for a lot of design thinking where comprehensive backward compability is irrelevant, costly and therefore ridiculous. But I mean we're talking client server protocol implementations that should be tiny (in text and data (mem) complexity), not hulking 3.5'' drives (not to mention 5.25's and tape readers :)), right?

So keeping as many of the useful proven RFC's (ie their protocols) alive is historically cool, maintains diversity in the design idea pool and the variety of media for the choosy / nostalgic users who choose nothing better to do than to write about it like this.

In any case, looking gopher up , I read (this being a recurrent pattern btw) that it so happens there is at present increased interest in gopher: "As of 2008, there are approximately 125 gopher servers indexed by Veronica-2,[8] a slow growth from 2007 when there were fewer than 100." (ibid.)

So once again, it seems that an idea (in this case the rekindling of interest in gopher) was not just appear here only but instead it was non local, generalized, occuring in several instances more or less in a short interval of time (say the span of 2008 - in my case through late summer and fall). ... Read more