I just returned from a cruise to Alaska. It is a wonderful, beautiful place. I zip-lined in a rain forest canopy, hiked above a glacier, kayaked coastal Canada and was pulled by sled-dogs. Anywho, as on many cruises, there was a casino, which is an excellent excuse for me to discuss probability. What is probability and where does it come from? Definitions are easy enough to find. Google returns: a measure of how likely it […]
Category: Relativity
Relativity as Informational Interdependence
Ever have the experience of sitting in traffic and believe that you are moving in reverse, only to realize a second later that you were fooled by the vehicle next to you moving forward? You were sitting still, but because you saw something moving away, you mistakenly thought you started to move in the opposite direction. Two different senses may be at work here: your sight and your balance. Lets assume that your balance did […]
Dependence Logic vs. Independence Friendly Logic
I picked up Dependence Logic: A New Approach to Independence Friendly Logic by Jouko Väänänen. I figure I’ll write up a review when I am finished with the book, but there is one chief difference between Dependence Logic and Independence Friendly Logic that needs to be mentioned. On pages 44-47 when describing the difference between Dependence Logic and Independence Friendly Logic Väänänen says, The backslashed quantifier, ∃xn{xi0,…,xim-1}φ, introduced in ref. [20], with the intuitive meaning: […]
Paradox Analysis
Apropos my earlier rant on people who think that paradoxes are meaningless, I figured I ought to take a stab at giving some meaning to paradox. To this end I reformulated a paradox in my terms. I suppose I should called it the Mirror Paradox, though ‘Looking-Glass Paradox’ seems more lyrical and has an historical nod. My apologies to whoever actually came up with this first, though I am sure I haven’t heard it before… […]
Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and a Gift of an Ontological Razor from Me to You!
There is no preferential ontological perspective. I hope your new year is awesome.
The Logic of Biological Relativity [draft]
How can we represent biological relativity in logical notation? Organism a is adapting relative to organism b Aab Organism b is adapting relative to a Aba Organisms a and b are adapting relative to each other Aab & Aba This schema is unsatisfactory because it describes the situation from an indeterminate outside perspective: a and b are said to be adapting relative to each other without regard to the observer describing the situation. Relativity applies […]
Relativity in Biology notes from 2005
It’s always interesting to see the start of ideas. Although I don’t have anything from the Spring of ’04 when I recall realizing biorelativity for the first time, I have found a file with a ‘last modified’ date of June12, ’05, the contents of which are below: Quantum Biology biology: the study of the physical attributes of life. the rate of mutation is constant, much as the speed of light organisms mutate. light shines. hence […]
The Logic of Relativity [draft]
How can we represent relativity in logical notation? a is moving relative to b Mab b is moving relative to a Mba a and b are moving relative to each other Mab & Mba This schema is unsatisfactory because it describes the situation from an indeterminate outside perspective: a and b are moving relative to each other without regard to the observer describing the situation. Relativity applies to all the perspectives in question (with special […]
Evolutionary Drift, revisited yet again
With my recent paper on Measuring Fitness I realize that my previous responses to evolutionary drift, though not incorrect, may have not stated the solution particularly clearly. When fitness is defined and measured as described in the aforementioned article, evolutionary drift is irrelevant. The method of measuring the fitness of an organism or species makes no reference to any mutations whatsoever. Therefore evolutionary drift is no problem for the theory of fitness described here. If […]
Measuring Fitness
The basic premise is to measure fitness in a conceptually similar way to how we measure mass. To measure mass we can use a scale to compare the effect of gravity on a test object to an object with an agreed upon mass, or we can compare the test object’s resistance to acceleration as compared to an object with an agreed upon mass. These methods measure the ‘gravitational’ mass and ‘inertial mass’ respectively. Gravitational Mass […]