Reflections
THE PERSISTENCE OF MEMORY PAINTING BY SALVADOR DALI
A force is a vector. The laws & phenomenon of the universe can be charaterized mathematically because they are mathematical objects & the math is physical.
In monist idealism, there is only one unified Mind w/ many localized perspectives. Cons. is that faculty which we all share, which both maintains our individuated state & also unites our localized perspectives by discerning the shared qualities of meaning vis self-awareness.
I think the only isolated facts that we know with complete certainty, like the existence of our thoughts, are known without any need of argument or proof. They are direct intuitions- Knowledge is simply the process of observing phenomena and discovering their holistic harmony.
I think a genuine epistemology is also an ontology. We cannot determine the nature of "reality" or "mind" without also determining the nature of "knowing" and "truth" , i.e. the tools we use to investigate the former.
Searle's experiment doesn't succeed at proving that functionalism is false because the room is not functionally equivalent to an actual Chinese speaker, precisely in its lack of semantic understanding.'
I have a usual objection to Searle's Chinese room experiment in that while the thought experiment succeeds at proving that syntax isn't enough for semantics.
The point of computers is that they establish causal relationships b/w the symbols which mimic the semantic properties of those symbols i.e., in a stable representational system. There is some sort of notion of causal alignment.
Most theories can be couched in First Order Logic (FOL) & theory in FOL has an equivalent computer program i.e., a turing machine which enumerates the theorems of that theory.
A black hole can be contemplated as a ring of discontinuous space-time curvature, wherein the space bulges hyperbolically. It’s only discontinuous in the centre, everywhere around it is continuously varying.
-Sanj/17.02.2022