<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto">That‘s it what is all this about!<div>Very nicely said in a nutshell, Lou!</div><div>Thank you! And Karl too, for his Q&A/S outline. </div><div><br></div><div><div>This latest exchange is worth to be published as a letter to the editors of Nature. </div></div><div><br></div><div>Formal systems and theories like set theory or Milner‘s Pi calculus taken alone for themselves, are of course limited in their capability to describe and explain the real world, but their number, being human creations is unlimited, since these systems and theories are living too, i.e. emerging and developing to make new bridges between islands of knowledge and represent new solutions, and thus, while being just tools like Stu‘s favorite screwdriver, they have also unlimited number of uses, that only we can limit when answering a specific question. </div><div><br></div><div>All the best,</div><div><br></div><div>Plamen<br><div><div dir="ltr"><br><blockquote type="cite">On Feb 27, 2024, at 4:15 AM, Louis Kauffman <loukau@gmail.com> wrote:<br><br></blockquote></div><blockquote type="cite"><div dir="ltr"><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=utf-8">Excellent Karl.<div class="">Thank you.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">The point about good theorems about limitations is that they show us exactly what produces the limitations. </div><div class="">Thus if you insist on using one formal system and it is consistent and can do arithmetic, then it is definitely incomplete.</div><div class="">We can actually see how this happens. But that does not mean that we are limited. We are limited if we insist on one system.</div><div class="">We are not limited in the Goedelian way if we are evolving new systems over time. That is in fact what mathematics does.</div><div class="">No one has proved that there are utterly unsolvable problems, just that if you insist on living in a box then you will not be able to see what is outside </div><div class="">the box. And remarkably, we find very challenging problems that push us to find out how we are boxed and push us to get out of that box.</div><div class="">The problems come both from within mathematics (like Riemann Hypothesis or Collatz problem) and from outside mathematics (like the problem of understanding biology, or the problem of unifying gravity and quantum theory). Mathematics is not based on formal systems. Mathematics is based on unsolved problems.</div><div class="">Science is not based on formal procedures. Science is based on our questions about the world.</div><div class="">Best,</div><div class="">Lou</div><div class=""><br class=""><div><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On Feb 26, 2024, at 4:01 AM, Karl Javorszky <<a href="mailto:karl.javorszky@gmail.com" class="">karl.javorszky@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><span lang="EN-US" class="">Assisted Self-Exploration </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><span lang="EN-US" class="">2024 02 26</span></p><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; line-height: 115%; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><span lang="EN-US" class=""> </span><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><span lang="EN-US" class="">Dear Carlos,</span></p><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; line-height: 115%; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><span lang="EN-US" class=""> </span><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><span lang="EN-US" class="">Thank you
for pointing out Alex’s remark, who said:</span></p><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 35.4pt; line-height: normal; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;" class=""><i class=""><span lang="EN-US" style="color:rgb(11,83,148)" class="">P.S. Since the world, particularly that of living
forms, is </span></i></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 35.4pt; line-height: normal; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;" class=""><i class=""><span lang="EN-US" style="color:rgb(11,83,148)" class="">extensively populated by critical points /
instabilities,</span></i></div><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 35.4pt; line-height: normal; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;" class=""><i class=""><span lang="EN-US" style="color:rgb(11,83,148)" class="">the time evolution of the world cannot be fully
described</span></i></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 5pt 35.4pt;line-height:normal;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><i class=""><span lang="EN-US" style="color:rgb(11,83,148)" class="">by digital information.</span></i></p><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; line-height: 115%; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><span class="gmail-MsoSubtleEmphasis" style="color:rgb(64,64,64);font-style:italic"><span lang="EN-US" class=""> </span></span><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><span lang="EN-US" class="">The
situation in which someone is frustrated because of an inability to solve a
task is not that unusual. One of the established tools to assist the client in
this crisis is to encourage them to investigate their inability and check
whether there are ways with either improving on abilities or lowering of expectations.
Let me give a short and simple demonstration.</span></p><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; line-height: 115%; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><span lang="EN-US" class=""> </span><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><b class=""><span lang="EN-US" class="">State:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" class=""> So you can’t describe and explain clearly some
processes of Nature by using your traditional language.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><b class=""><span lang="EN-US" class="">Question:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" class=""> Do you think that what you cannot describe is</span></p><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 36pt; line-height: 115%; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><span lang="EN-US" class="">a.<span style="font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-variant-alternates:normal;font-kerning:auto;font-feature-settings:normal;font-stretch:normal;font-size:7pt;line-height:normal;font-family:"Times New Roman"" class=""> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" class="">The work of trolls, elves, divine
will, Kismet and like</span></div><p class="gmail-MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin:0cm 0cm 8pt 36pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><span lang="EN-US" class="">b.<span style="font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-variant-alternates:normal;font-kerning:auto;font-feature-settings:normal;font-stretch:normal;font-size:7pt;line-height:normal;font-family:"Times New Roman"" class=""> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" class="">Basically, comprehensible in a
rational fashion</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><b class=""><span lang="EN-US" class="">State:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" class=""> So, you are sure you can describe the thing if
you have the dexterity, because the thing, in itself, as such, is not indescribable.
The only thing is to learn, how.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><b class=""><span lang="EN-US" class="">Question:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" class=""> Do you think the problem lies</span></p><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 36pt; line-height: 115%; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><span lang="EN-US" class="">a.<span style="font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-variant-alternates:normal;font-kerning:auto;font-feature-settings:normal;font-stretch:normal;font-size:7pt;line-height:normal;font-family:"Times New Roman"" class=""> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" class="">In your brain, you not being talented
enough</span></div><p class="gmail-MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin:0cm 0cm 8pt 36pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><span lang="EN-US" class="">b.<span style="font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-variant-alternates:normal;font-kerning:auto;font-feature-settings:normal;font-stretch:normal;font-size:7pt;line-height:normal;font-family:"Times New Roman"" class=""> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" class="">In the tools you use, these not
being suited to do the task with</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><b class=""><span lang="EN-US" class="">State:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" class=""> It is the tools that are a problem. One is habituated
to the tools one has learnt.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><b class=""><span lang="EN-US" class="">Question:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" class=""> Would you be available for a clandestine
revolutionary conspiracy that would overthrow the ruling system, if by such
acts you could gain the ability to describe that what you presently cannot
describe?</span></p><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 36pt; line-height: 115%; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><span lang="EN-US" class="">a.<span style="font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-variant-alternates:normal;font-kerning:auto;font-feature-settings:normal;font-stretch:normal;font-size:7pt;line-height:normal;font-family:"Times New Roman"" class=""> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" class="">No, I am a faithful follower of the
Sumerians and their descendants, their prophet Wittgenstein and his apostle
Shannon. The world is made up of units that are uniform. The units fit
seamlessly. One state of the world can be described by one logical sentence. You
cannot fight city hall, much less Academia.</span></div><p class="gmail-MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin:0cm 0cm 8pt 36pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><span lang="EN-US" class="">b.<span style="font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-variant-alternates:normal;font-kerning:auto;font-feature-settings:normal;font-stretch:normal;font-size:7pt;line-height:normal;font-family:"Times New Roman"" class=""> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" class="">Yes, I believe that each one has the
right to use their own head. All established knowledge turns out in historical
perspective to be a man-made, socially influenced construct, with its
structural problems. I join the anti-Sumerian coalition by saying that biology
needs a better explanatory language than that developed by the Sumerians.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 8pt 18pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><b class=""><span lang="EN-US" class="">State:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" class=""> So, you can distinguish different
properties of different units and you are willing to talk about system of
concepts, which deviates to the ruling mantra, because it has different units,
not uniform units like the Sumerians. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 8pt 18pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><b class=""><span lang="EN-US" class="">Question:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" class=""> Have you been interested in
rankings, social prominence, privileges, class structures, social hierarchies
and the like?</span></p><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 53.25pt; line-height: 115%; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><span lang="EN-US" class="">a.<span style="font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-variant-alternates:normal;font-kerning:auto;font-feature-settings:normal;font-stretch:normal;font-size:7pt;line-height:normal;font-family:"Times New Roman"" class=""> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" class="">No, sorting things was never my
hobby. I avoid the subject of sorting, because when I assign a rank to a thing,
then this is a private, subjective act. I have learnt that correct, objective,
factual are such things that I as a person have no dealings with. Sorting being
a procedure with many possible rules and many possible results, it is too much
subjective for me, and I shall never in my life sort and resort 12 books on my
table, because I hear in my head people saying. “Why do you put it there? Could
you not have taken a different place?!” in a sentence melody which I have no
wish to hear again. </span></div><p class="gmail-MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin:0cm 0cm 8pt 53.25pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><span lang="EN-US" class="">b.<span style="font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-variant-alternates:normal;font-kerning:auto;font-feature-settings:normal;font-stretch:normal;font-size:7pt;line-height:normal;font-family:"Times New Roman"" class=""> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" class="">I thought you would never ask. This
is a cathartic moment for me. There is so much emotional ballast with my
experiences of being sorted, ranked, chosen, rejected, belonging to these but
not to those which, etc. etc. Besides, is a concept of continual reorderings
not similar to a Greek concept of competing deities, to Marx’s class struggle
and the ideas of a well-ordered collection and the ideal society?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><b class=""><span lang="EN-US" class="">State:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" class=""> You are ready to learn something new. The
algorithms that describe the functioning of a closed collection of individual
units have not been evolved by the Sumerians, because the poor devils had no
computers. Now we have computers and time and interest, so inevitably something
non-Sumerian had to come up eventually, with the flexibility to describe what
happens in biology, which is – somewhat simplified – a closed collection of
individual units. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><b class=""><span lang="EN-US" class="">Question:</span></b><span lang="EN-US" class=""> The proceedings within a <i class="">habitat </i>of simple logical units direct your attention to recurrent patterns.
One can only observe such, if one breaks with 3 Sumerian traditions: 1. Finite collection
(we use 136 units), 2. Units are individuals (we use pairs of <i class="">a,b</i>), 3.
The individual units have relations among each other (we read out numbers from
a table). </span></p><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 36pt; line-height: 115%; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><span lang="EN-US" class="">a.<span style="font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-variant-alternates:normal;font-kerning:auto;font-feature-settings:normal;font-stretch:normal;font-size:7pt;line-height:normal;font-family:"Times New Roman"" class=""> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" class="">Such self-made artistry is not my métier.
For me, science is that what is published in respectable magazines and endorsed
by influential persons of authority.</span></div><p class="gmail-MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin:0cm 0cm 8pt 36pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><span lang="EN-US" class="">b.<span style="font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-variant-alternates:normal;font-kerning:auto;font-feature-settings:normal;font-stretch:normal;font-size:7pt;line-height:normal;font-family:"Times New Roman"" class=""> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" class="">I was always good at accounting, sudokus,
the magic cube and such. Give me a riddle based on <i class="">a+b=c </i>for the first <i class="">16 a</i>,<i class="">b</i>,
and I will sort it out. If we dig up some archaic logical interconnectors,
there is business in this project.</span></p><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; line-height: 115%; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><span lang="EN-US" class=""> </span><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><span lang="EN-US" class="">Along such
lines would an assisted self-exploration go. </span></p><div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt; line-height: 115%; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><span lang="EN-US" class=""> </span><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 8pt;line-height:115%;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><span lang="EN-US" class="">Karl</span></p></div>
_______________________________________________<br class="">Fis mailing list<br class=""><a href="mailto:Fis@listas.unizar.es" class="">Fis@listas.unizar.es</a><br class="">http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis<br class="">----------<br class="">INFORMACI�N SOBRE PROTECCI�N DE DATOS DE CAR�CTER PERSONAL<br class=""><br class="">Ud. recibe este correo por pertenecer a una lista de correo gestionada por la Universidad de Zaragoza.<br class="">Puede encontrar toda la informaci�n sobre como tratamos sus datos en el siguiente enlace: https://sicuz.unizar.es/informacion-sobre-proteccion-de-datos-de-caracter-personal-en-listas<br class="">Recuerde que si est� suscrito a una lista voluntaria Ud. puede darse de baja desde la propia aplicaci�n en el momento en que lo desee.<br class="">http://listas.unizar.es<br class="">----------<br class=""></div></blockquote></div><br class=""></div><span>_______________________________________________</span><br><span>Fis mailing list</span><br><span>Fis@listas.unizar.es</span><br><span>http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis</span><br><span>----------</span><br><span>INFORMACIÓN SOBRE PROTECCIÓN DE DATOS DE CARÁCTER PERSONAL</span><br><span></span><br><span>Ud. recibe este correo por pertenecer a una lista de correo gestionada por la Universidad de Zaragoza.</span><br><span>Puede encontrar toda la información sobre como tratamos sus datos en el siguiente enlace: https://sicuz.unizar.es/informacion-sobre-proteccion-de-datos-de-caracter-personal-en-listas</span><br><span>Recuerde que si está suscrito a una lista voluntaria Ud. puede darse de baja desde la propia aplicación en el momento en que lo desee.</span><br><span>http://listas.unizar.es</span><br><span>----------</span><br></div></blockquote></div></div></body></html>