The Meaning Code

Ryan and Karen dig into the ideas in Dorothy Sayers' eye opening work on creativity and through that lens to get a look into the principles that lie at the foundation of the universe.

Discussion with Stephen Hurn, Software Engineer for 18 years. Now working on Game Design and Writing, stay at home Dad. This episode is also on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Di_vUSQw-J0The design process for video games. Levels you operate in. Mechanics (the interaction with the user) up through Dynamics to aesthetic. Aesthetic (idea) informs the process and gets communicated through mechanics. That's the meaning layer. Quaternion Mathematics, 3-D software, triangles and measures Code is like a plan for the house. The computer builds the house based on the plan. Computer hardware is the atom level (Intel and AMD have different hardware, but a level up they can talk to each other) Each level up is to solve different kinds of problems. Hardware is converted to electrical signals, displaying the image on the screen. The level of the user interacting is the most important level. That's where the meaning is. Materialists think you can go from the bottom up, but the top level is the most important. User centric view in software. Every artist wants to communicate. The things you do are an attempt to communicate what you are seeing to the rest of the world. Accuracy. The God object - an anti-pattern. Software engineers follow patterns that become apparent in the world much as mathematicians see mathematics already there in the universe that can be used by us. There are good and bad ways to write code. Actual patterns emerge from the languages themselves and the way they interact with the hardware. There are better ways (preferred ways) to map the higher level to the lower level. There are divine patterns, and then there are evil patterns. The focus on accuracy or simplicity gives you a code that is as simple as it needs to be but no simpler. On the other side is the one great piece of code that fails because it is so convoluted and twisted that you can fix one bug and three more appear. Equivalent to the Tower of Babel. Too big not to fail. Don't touch it. It's likely to break. If you break it, it's hard to fix. Code is written for programmers to understand. The computer, on the other hand, will run (execute) anything it's been programmed with. Excellent coding book: Design Patterns: The Big Four

Michael and Karen discuss a lecture James Lindsay gave on the dangers of the philosophies that have captured the present moment. We try to thread the needle through the truly beneficial part of James' lecture and the parts where he might be speaking outside his expertise.

Matt, philosopher/author/person discusses Reality with Karen.. Three perspectives on the meaning of a paper clip: The avant garde The creative The good/useful The multi-aspectuality of cognitive science. The thread that ties reality together Synoptic Gospels - St. Maximus the Confessor, St. Gregory of Nysa We are portions of God. The habit of Scripture is to say. What is a skill? We are mimicking the habit of our chosen profession The sublime pedantic Can one ever really "come back" from a psychedelic trip? Hegel - Negation and affirmation. You're always right and you're always wrong. Until you have the "now" straight, you can't think about a practice. Distinctiveness v. the common The human being is a microcosm of the macrocosm. Counterfeits Heretic Participation is not optional We have the evidence of the habit. We have to eat and sleep - not beyond that. Ascetic practices. Even the discipline of going to work every day is an ascetic practice. Orthodoxy is Paradoxy. Jesus ascended the cross as a king stepping up to His throne. If it's not real, it's not real. If it is real, whatever it relates to becomes real. Children like order. We can approach these wonderful things without falling into sentimentality. To a perennial problem, there is a perennial innocent. The human being - the land - the promise. The land being defiled - redeeming the land. We're not disposable. We're not going anywhere. The land lies fallow. Order consists of beginning, middle, end. Don't attach to a practice a guaranteed end. When we don't give up, we're reflecting God. Beware of worshipping at the wrong altar.

Michael Clarage, PhD Physics, (Electric Universe, Safire Project)Michael Martin, PhD Literature (poet, biodynamic farmer, author of Submerged Realityjoin Karen to discuss the need for science to acknowledge qualitative as well as quantitative observations.

Ryan is a software developer who often has the conversation with his colleagues about the big questions underlying software development. Where does the system live? The real system corresponding to the meaning, and the hardware corresponding to the matter. This episode can also be found as video at YouTube:https://youtu.be/5rDsJOs1zWkSoftware designers will often discuss a project they are working on by saying, "It seems like it wants to do X" as though the program itself has some sort of agency. What is really happening in these attempts at communicating abstract levels without the input of narrative?

Sevilla King joins Karen for what will be a monthly get together discussing opponent processing, quality and the nature of ultimate reality. Today's conversation focuses on these Clips from Jordan Peterson/John Vervaeke video. This podcast also available on YouTube @ https://youtu.be/S5JpOaDazooA Conversation So Intense It Might Transcend Time and Spacehttps://youtu.be/IZ-tHaHfB8ATimestamp from JBP video: 59:50 How decision weighting corresponds to choice in art and the cosmosTimestamp from JBP video: 1:02:30 How symphonic music describes the layout of the universe and its relationship to ultimate realityRelevance RealizationDecision Weightingmulti-dimensional opponent processingThe convergence of conjugate dualitiesThe coincidence of opposites and proportion in art

Links after notes on our talk: tightening up a definition of entropy and exploring computational theory and emergence and their underlying implications. When anomalies show up, a new physics is needed. Entropy is more qualitative than quantitative. No creativity without entropy. It takes excess energy to get things over the hump and energy to create order and to maintain order. You can only play the deconstruction game once. Irreversibility is a fundamental aspect of the universe. The universe is fundamentally irreversible. The 2nd law is not driving time but is a consequence of that. The laws of physics appear to be reversible, but is that just a function of the continuous and differentiable functions that physics is using to do the calculations? Physics is always creating mathematical models that describe what we see in the universe around us, not what it is actually doing. Computation: the simplest system is a finite state machine. The memory of the past is gone. Shows irreversibility in computation. Landauer's principle, Landauer's eraser. When you go through a logic gate, you lose information and entropy has gone up. Transistors need to be in a very specific order to be useful. Emergence crosses a barrier when something complicated becomes simple again. One of the better popular science video channels that tries to tackle the deeper questions in physics. “PBS Space-Time,” https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7_gcs09iThXybpVgjHZ_7g “Turing machines explained visually, (8:45-duration)” https://youtu.be/-ZS_zFg4w5k “LEGO Turing Machine, (2:22-duration)” https://youtu.be/FTSAiF9AHN4 “Computers Without Memory – Computerphile, (8:51-duration)” https://youtu.be/vhiiia1_hC4 “Understanding Consciousness | Rupert Sheldrake, George Ellis, Amie Thomasson, (43:40-duration)” https://youtu.be/c-QOlTD0YHo “Closer to Truth, the PBS/public television series on cosmos, consciousness and meaning…,” https://www.closertotruth.com/search/site/emergence And for those who are more book oriented, and have had no previous exposure to the subject of Emergence, this collection of essays would be an excellent place to start. “The Re-Emergence of Emergence: The Emergentist Hypothesis from Science to Religion,” https://www.amazon.com/Re-Emergence-Emergence-Emergentist-Hypothesis-Religion/dp/019954431X Phillip Clayton, here’s the real bombshell that the physics of Emergence throws into theology, link to https://www.closertotruth.com/series/why-emergence-significant and listen to his segment posted there. “What Exists is Not Only Physical | George Ellis,” https://youtu.be/Zx3F73po4YE?t=5 Whole 6 Part series Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLoARw9zo4EUZhxqfaqYU5yjy0-Tr8RlB4

For full visuals of the movie, see this on Youtube: https://youtu.be/6r8EZwQ7TVgMoviemaker and musician, Neil DeGraide of Dirt Poor Robins, discusses Concept Art, Music and Narrative and the differences between desire and identity. Politicized propaganda art. The Cosmic Image The dual problems: Bottom up - appetites rule (ex: gluttony) Top down - mind forces perception (ex: anorexia) This could all be a symphony It is showing us something. In the Incarnation, the unseen is mediated at a level we can see. Pattern is coherent. Each day is a fractal of the whole of life. Time is not a construct. It is a warm, personal human category. All the secrets of God are being mediated through mankind. God made the world intelligible. Sin is a disease and God is not a bean counter. Reflecting on Mcgilchrist: RH = tradition, LH = renewal Art can break people's hearts and put them back together in a more beautiful way. The need for teleology The need to fill the culture with Beauty

Glen gives a physicist's view of what is necessary to create a life form. In this episode, we touch on entropy and theory of computation, Link to playlist of all 6 episodes follows notes.Intro to Theory of Computation link: https://youtu.be/58N2N7zJGrQ?t=466 Misunderstood Nature of Entropy link: https://youtu.be/kfffy12uQ7g?t=140 Digital Smell video link on key in lock mechanism in neurons: https://youtu.be/NsqsEni2uE4?t=3284 Getting Entropy right is important Intelligence as a modifier: intelligently behaved systems, systems that demonstrate intelligence, acting intelligently. Simplest computational structure - a state machine The universe of keys is the universe of consciousness of the lock. What information is useful to you. The key has a profile. The lock mechanism has a model of what it's looking for. The computation is comparing the model with the key. Dance is an example of a learning that has been incorporated into your fabric where you no longer have to think about it. The correspondence between the mechanical side and a language. Using a language like Verilog, an abstract idea can be turned into traces on a silicon disc and instantiated in the real world. The theory of computation - abstract half and physical half. Set theory. Computational systems and a hierarchy of languages. The system recognizes a language. How do we get to an artificial non-biological life form? 1. Cast it into the language of computation and it will tell you what the structure will look like? 2. Self-sustaining (harvests energy, feeds itself) 3. Be able to reproduce. 4. Find a chemical that acts as a logic switch. Using proteins as a logic gate? Life happens because proteins can fold in a certain way. RNA polymerase transcribes the DNA. The protein molecule is built intelligently. Next episode we will discuss Emergence. Also the possible combinations of deterministic and predictable, unpredictable, indeterministic. DNA is encoded information. If something is using the information, the system defines what is useful. Whole 6 part series Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLoARw9zo4EUZhxqfaqYU5yjy0-Tr8RlB4