patteren | meta | 08
 
2.0 | nostalgia: hidden variables, an elastic proof
i believe there is a [nostalgia] simon and garfunkel song which contains a line, or similar: 'if you took all the girls i knew when i was single, and put them altogether for a day, it would never match my sweet imagination ...' : but for me this is not absolutely the reality : it strikes me, rather, that taking all the moments [nostalgia], filled with the pain and mystery of sentimentality, and similarly arranged them, the lacunae would overwhelm the recollections : and because of something to do with place-names and temps perdu [nostalgia], and because of the observation that the temps perdu must not be the whole story, that the lacunae in the array must contain something after all, and the seeking for that something must be other than rank sentimentality, and that the expression of seeking is but an emblem of the pain of this seeking, and that the material of the expression left unsaid, the negative space, the lacunae, the measures of rest, the empty beats, are in fact the substance of the expression after all : the meta-phor therefore [the accuracy of the symbol being greater than that of the literal, for example] shows that the un-perceived is in fact the subject and substance [reality] of the memory [nostalgia] : and so 'my sweet imagination', which is never matched by the memory, is in fact the substance of the memory and so the line from the song is unintentionally accurate, in that the relationship between the memory and the 'imagination' is critical, because the imagination is in fact the substance of the memory : for example, stewart, p109: 'According to modern physics, nature is ruled by chance on its smallest scales of space and time ... There is no physical difference whatsoever between a uranium atom that is about to decay and one that is not about to decay. None. Absolutely none.' and later: 'To my mind, there is something distinctly fishy about the orthodox physical view of quantum indeterminancy, and I appear not to be alone, because, increasingly, many physicists are beginning to wonder whether ... something is missing from conventional quantum mechanics — perhaps "hidden variables," whose values tell an atom when to decay ... ' : the hidden variables in the temps perdu are the essentials which determine the quality of the moments in the array : there is, i believe, a john cage notion that, in music, of pitch and rhythm, rhythm is more essential in determining the quality of sound because pitch only applies when sound is present whereas rhythm applies to both sound and silence : his emphasis on silence is pointing in the same direction as my emphasis on the lacunae within memory : what is the nature of such 'hidden variables' [nostalgia] : as a start, they are perhaps the 'sweet imagination' never matched by the moments held in tender recollection : if the sweet imagination is indulged as being the axiom upon which our 'conjectures' and 'rigid proofs' and eventual 'theorem' [the theta theorem] is to be built, then its nature must be somehow illuminated : the method of illumination is not yet apparent : the reflection and experimentation resulting in the rigid proof is yet to occur : but to start, let's admit that the very nature of the 'hidden variables' we seek would seem to undermine the notion of a 'rigid proof' : the paradox is comforting: that we intend to illuminate hidden variables whose essence will vanish once illuminated gives credence to the motivation for our search : the unorthodox nature of the quest would perhaps compel us to re-name the goal: it could be an 'elastic proof' : in keeping with the comfort of paradox, that detours and accidents copmrise our journey toward discovery of hidden variables, and embracing, indeed hoping for the unexpected revelation: what defines the gap [lacuna] between elastic and inelastic : a good with inelastic demand implies that, as prices change, resulting changes in demand [quantity] are small [a steep demand curve], whereas elastic demand [a relatively flat curve] implies a relatively large change in quantity demanded resulting from a similar change in price : so lets say, for analogic purposes, our method of proof [elastic], built upon the axiom of 'sweet imagination', is comprised of many elastic goods, the demand for which will shift widely for changes in value : this implies a good with many substitutes, because as the value changes, those demanding the good will readily substitute another good in its place : lets further say our un-rigid [elastic] proof is to be comprised of goods which are certain elements, for example propositions or conjectures stemming somehow from our 'sweet imagination' : so an elastic as opposed to inelastic proof would necessarily entail a depth of substitution among its elements [elastic goods], and substitution can be alternatively characterized as symbolization, where one conjecture can be readily substituted with or symbolized by another conjecture : and by embracing the paradox whereby the meta-phor is a more powerful, indeed truthful, illumination than a literal description, we further realize that such substitutions can result in greater illuminations, and it may follow that the more substitutions that occur, the greater the illumination : so for this situation [the proposed discovery of unkown variables using the sweet imagination and conjecture] an elastic proof is necessary :: the lacunae : let's further remark that in our case, the hidden variables have a distinctly emotional [nostalgia] character : to me it implies that our conjecture based on the axiom of sweet imagination will also be emotional in character : [view picture] : consider the ancient conjecture as described by rudolph koch: each involving three lines and describing an aspect of intellect : passive, active, in action, creative, and disordered : 'the three lines, whether they run vertically or horizontally, or whether they move together or independently, achieve nothing, emerging from the void and returning to the void whence they came. Only the creative encloses a space and forms a definite figure, the three bodyless lines becoming a real object of which the triangle is the symbol.' : so, by 'emotional' in character, perhaps what I am thinking is 'creative' in character as illuminated in these ancient conjecture described by koch : that is, the lacunae comprising 'sweet imagination' [nostalgia] must be approached through creative process : now to consider process, and certainly pick up the theme of this process becoming the end goal or result, in paradox, this lack of completion being the completion, the array of the incessant seeking constituting the sought, the process [meta] layer : the unseen layer being exactly analogous to our 'hidden variables' : remembering the two lines, equivalent in outward appearance but with different layers of process : and so somehow we end up linking the abandoning of the goal in order to achieve the goal, the exploration of the process [meta] layer, the lacunae in recollection copmrising the axiom of 'sweet imagination', and all such paradox as mirrored reflections of conjecture leading toward the elastic proof : is it possible, by the way, that a vast 'elastic proof' might prove to be stronger in the end through the sum of its parts than a 'rigid proof' which, when broken, is broken completely, whereas the elastic proof, when broken, is impervious in that it already consists of myriad fragments : but the process [searching, meta] layer should be explored with care and delicacy although it must also entail a confidence [belief, nostalgia] and certainly a humility in that the layer implies that in order to reach the goal the desire to reach it is relinquished : as an emblem of this mixture of confidence and humility [paradox] it is helpful to recall the ocean of the tao: 'why is the sea king of all streams : because it lies beneath them' : and it follows that the format of the tea garden provides the warranted symbol [meta layer] of the symbol [process layer] : josiah conder p.143 describes the 'Cha-niwa', gardens comprising the path of approach to the tea room : his description implies familiar paradoxical charateristics of the garden, which entails the path through which a visitor to the tea house passes in order to prepare for the ritual : p147 'Most Tea Gardens are remarkable for extreme simplicity combined with an affectation of natural wildness' [humility, confidence] : also: tea gardens 'may be said to assume an air of respectable poverty and decay, accompanied by the most punctilious cleanliness.' : and so the process path represented by the garden is at once a scene of 'decay' and 'cleanliness', only contradictory on the surface : in the sense that 'decay' is the process of time : take, for example, the decay that results in fermentation, of grain or rice whose result is alchohol which has properties resulting in sterilization, and so indeed with time [theta], decay and cleanliness are congruous : it is notable that, in this case, time [theta] is the hidden variable which solves the paradox between decay and cleanliness : happily, we are thus back to theta [time] as an instrument of paradox : and, to eternally return to the 'sweet imagination' as the point at which the line becomes the circle, it is evident that the empty beats, the measures of rest, that represent time [theta] and decay [fermentation] are critical as the lacunae [hidden variables] : as part of the return along the line [circle] consider the example, stewart p.109, of the 'uranium atom that is about to decay' which first provided the 'hidden variables' concept : that the tea garden description and the uranium atom should both opaquely lead to a discussion of decay [theta], of the process [meta] layer which is indicated also in koch's description of creativity [process] which is the only shape to emerge from the 'void' [lacunae] is obviously comforting : in the same chapter, stewart p108, describes the new math of 'nonlinear dynamics' [chaos] and how it disrupts conventional ideas about chance [see also panofsky, jung] : that chance may not be chance, but instead determined by 'hidden variables' and that nonlinear dynamics involves the 'geometrization of dynamics' p113, which involves the 'concept of a phase space', which is an 'imaginary mathematical space that represents all possible motions of a given dynamical system' : he indicates that the leap for mathematics is toward an emphasis on 'the image of a phase space as a way of organizing the total range of potential behaviors, from among which nature selects the behaviors actually observed' : what this means to me is that the knowledge of 'potential behaviors' is essential to understanding 'natures selection' which determines what is 'actually observed' : the potential behaviors are the meta layer, the lacunae [sweet imagination], which determine the quality of the actually observed [recollections] : for the purposes of our conjecture, 'potential behaviors' vs. 'actually observed' is analogous to the distinction between 'recollections' and 'sweet imagination', the latter being the lacunae, the beats of rest, the meta [unseen, process] layer, the theta of fermentation [decay], etc. : looking back, therefore, at jung and panofsky's lamentations over statistics, and looking forward to the new math [hidden variables, chaos] and also the new analysis [see wired: the end of science] where statistics is heralded to be in demise due to the super daisy chained computation of simply everything [no need for averages, statistics], the harbinger is of the understanding of hidden variables through computing and methematical theory and quantum mechanics : but our conjectures, we have established, contain a distinctly emotional character due to the nostalgia of time [theta, fermentation] : so how is it possible to affect the marriage between the distinctly emotional [nostalgia] nature of our elastic conjecture and the quantitative hints pointing toward our proof : the hidden variables, or temps perdu : perhaps, though, the method of elastic duplication and repetition, a mimicry of nonlinear dynamics, a rough-hwen precision, like a process of 'decay' entailing 'cleanliness' : the 'elucidation' of the elucidation [meta elucidation] : because this present writing is the phase of intellectualization [illumination of contemplation] it entails certain shortcomings which will threaten the coherence of the elastic proof, so the elastic proof must be expanded in scope to include elements that speak more directly from the axiom of 'sweet imagination' : but that notwithstanding there may be intellectualization that assists in filling in the rustic, rough hewn texture of mosaic formulations of conjecture whose empty space is anyway its defining characteristic : in a previous incarnation, uriel [eternal return] was concerned with the supremacy of the 'construct' of time [theta] over that of choice [option], and the emotional narrative caused him to strive to reverse the relationship between the constructs in nature, thus endeavoring to overturn theta and not merely, in the parlance of billy pilgrim, become 'unstuck in time', but also to intervene in choices made at certain nodes throughout the continuum : this presented certain narrative difficulties, which are commonplace in narratives of that type, and, to the best of my recollection, the evolution of the story was into a discussion of whether the intervention into theta would be one of awareness or one of action, in other words if these nodes in time, possessing I think a distinction of emotional content, were going to be altered, or if simply the experience of them was going to be altered, for at each theta node various realities existed : so the latter solution seems less problematic in that the agent of choosing [uriel] would not contradict the choices of other agents, since presumably each node involved various agents : in short, multiple branches of reality stem from each node, and in order to travel back in time and alter one's choices uriel simply had to expand his consciousness wuch that he could go back [nostalgia, temps perdu] to a given node and take a different branch of reality [make a different choice] : in so far as present day quantum mechanics cannot handle or explain why human consciousness would have a different relationship with the past than with the future, this rough hewn narrative summary would seem to approach the gap between the quantitative [quantum mechanics, options pricing] and the qualitative, emotional [nostalgi, temps perdu] : so uriel's 'sweet imagination' was able to fill in the gaps [lacunae], and discover these 'hidden variables' and in so doing provide a more satisfying version of existence in which temps perdu and discovered and lacunae illuminatied by sweet imagination.