Conversation about the number 2

In his Autobiography, Russell summarizes his conclusion in Human Society in Ethics and Politics in the following manner: “The conclusion that I reach is that ethics is never an independent constituent, but is reducible to politics in the last analysis.” 

Bertrand Russell, along with Alfred North Whitehead, wrote Principia Mathematica primarily to establish a solid foundation for mathematics using formal logic. The proof that 1+1=2 occupies a significant portion of the work (specifically, around 83 pages) because it illustrates several key points about the nature of mathematical truth and the structure of logical systems:

The following is a conversation I had with a friend in Pennsylvania:

For the western mind, the popular concept of heaven comes from the Platonic metaphysical world of forms, as the Jewish text has no definition of heaven as we know it.  By understanding the Platonic forms we can find peace, for when we know that all ideals can have a metaphysical reality in a platonic sense, suffering becomes a mental construct and needless. This has a parallel in the concept of infinite or many worlds, where all imagined can be realized. 

If our concept of God is eternal, then God is as unknowable as infinite sets. If the God we imagine is good, and the material world bad, then the divine or what we call good  are simulations of the mind of an ideal universe. Since God is a simulation of the mind, and if we hope for a good God, to know God would require an ability to know what is good. Therefore, if we want a world governed by a good God we must first know what is true and good, then with a belief in that goodness we will create a good world.

Our actions are governed by what we believe and the known world is a projection of the mind, the mind is developed upon will, the will is an attribute of creation and is shaped by our reason.

"Thou art that” is a translation of the Sanskrit phrase Tat Tvam Asi, which appears in the Upanishads and is a fundamental teaching in Vedanta, which implies that Man is a subset of God,. 

The supposition that Man is made in the image of God is absurd as would be to say that a liver cell is made in the image of man. Man is a subset and an integral part of God, therefore as "below so above", if we ever hope to have a good God, we must know what is good and practice the same.    

The supposition that eternal life is a good thing is absurd. As a human the ideal life may be within a vision of a Platonic heaven, but it must be finite, for we were not designed as infinite beings, we were designed for the present moment, so value this moment, not the future or past. "Eternity in a grain of sand", there is an infinity in a moment.   

The supposition that God is loving or vengeful is absurd.  Love and vengeance are components of sexual will and not any part of God, God is unknowable.     

God for some unknown reason creates evolutionary complexity, we are but a small yet infinite cog in a process, so complex that it can never be understood, although we may never understand God, or reality, we can understand ourselves and improve our lives, to escape suffering is the point of life.      

2.

I discovered Wittgenstein because I discovered entropy in high school. I saw Entropy as the most important concept of all - Religion was on a far lower rank.

Entropy was the cause and foundation of the universe, life, evolution, and civilization. Entropy was a set of unknown rules that dictated that I would now type his letter "k". Reality was deterministic and the key to understanding reality was Entropy.

This led me to Boltzmann , Turring and Lorenz  and I concluded that life had emerged from entropy, and civilization emerged from biology. The mathematicians told us the key that permitted us to understand our reality was never to be obtained.

I then discovered Cantor and Godel , and that let me to Russell, Frege and finally Wittgenstien,  who tells me reality is limited to a finite set of words we don't understand, with which most of us use to say nothing.   

"there is no class (as a totality) of who's classes which, each taken as a totality  do not belong to themselves." Bertrand Russell

Logic breaks down, the natural "will" becomes absurd and the only valid task is aesthetic, which is found in the quality of human life.  Since the quality of human life is social, and mimetic, then the improvement of society is the only valid task.  

1.

This is great. I need to learn more math. I'm not familiar with the first three links, although I know of Turing. Somewhat familiar with Cantor & Frege, but mainly through Russell's teachings and I forget most of it. I'll get back to you on those after some reading.

It's interesting you came to the same point through math, I arrived via psychology, sociology and classical philosophy. I saw religion as mainly irrational in practice at first so I ignored most of it. The golden rule, I didn't need a book for that, so the only thoughtful religious influence I had during my high school years were a few philosophical Vedic texts I read online and Herman Hesse's Siddhartha.

I liked math but it took up a lot of time and was boring when I was young. I was a lazy student so I stayed away from it. I've always known of it's supremacy in the sciences though.

It wasn't until college, when I started to apply advanced statistics to population data, that I really appreciated its power. My favorite course in school taught us how to formulaically quantify psycho-social problems. There was a formula for changing beliefs and behaviors and it was mind-blowing to watch how-- once quantified-- math could be applied and a simple nudge would push the data so far. That and the concept of passive acceptance of implicature made me never want to watch an advertisement again. Anyway my point is I'm eager to learn about math.

I’ve noticed thinking of ethics (or purpose, etc.) as aesthetic makes you care more about aesthetics since they're so important, which in an odd way I think has been making me happier. It seems to focus my mind on the importance of savoring the moment & beauty of life. Before, that mental effort would have been wasted on wondering whether or not I was maximizing my utility-- a question that was more paralyzing than motivating. I think seeing goals, small or large, as aesthetic preferences rather than moral obligations makes the labor towards them easier as well.

2

I am a strong believer in intuition we know some things because the knowledge is already in us. You found value in Wittgenstein without the math, the math is the proof.

I still don't fully understand Turring's Halting Problem ... but do understand why some things are uncountable, and most phenomena will never be understood through Cantors set theory, and Lorenz.

It's like there is a point where understanding ends, and there is no more that needs to be known. You see the "will" or desire as the axis at the rotation of a flawed civilization. You notice that desire is a closed finite set with an end, and notice that the absurdity was the "will," then all desire vanishes - all suffering is gone, even death is welcome.

It is desire that motivates our day to day life, and describes who we are. Desire is the cause of all suffering, anyone that comes to this conclusion notices how absurd living like this would be. Who would want eternal life?

On the other hand if you eliminate all desire to where all that is left is the pleasure of a good deed, you tend to then see eternity in a wild flower, and life becomes very comforting.

1.

Realized I know a lot about set theory, I definitely studied it a good bit over the years.

Entropy is very cool, I knew the general concept but Boltzmann’s constant helps me really grasp it.

The halting problem has me scratching my head too, but I think I get the takeaway. It immediately makes me think of Wittgenstein. You’d have to step outside of the matrix to be able to account for it all, and being inside it we can’t even know that “outside the matrix” even exists. Very interesting that this problem arises in computing.

The Lorenz system I think I’m not fully understanding. I know the concept of a “butterfly effect” but not sure how it fits here mathematically. I see how the butterfly effect applies to entropy though.

To eliminate all desire… that is not an easy task. I don’t desire many material things. I already have every “thing” that I want. I do, however, desire security. In this world, money brings security, which makes my desire material.

I also desire fulfillment. The pleasure of a good deed is exactly what that is to me. The problem comes back to human selfishness. As much as I’d like to say otherwise, I want to be secure more than I want to be fulfilled, so I prioritize accordingly. I spend more time trying to make money than I do doing good deeds.

Thus comes the issue in eliminating desire. Either you get rich or become an ascetic monk, otherwise desire is going to stick around. Even if you become both, we still desire connections to others.

You say even death becomes welcome. As I was writing this I found out one of our family’s dogs has untreatables cancer and a few months to live. It seems beyond human ability to not desire a loved one, even a dog, to be able to live longer.

I’d like to rid myself of the desires I have left but have found them stubborn. They feel hardwired into me. I was of the opinion that they were a product of biology that I should accept rather than try to change. If you believe otherwise I'm all ears.

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I think I understand the concept of the “butterfly effect” but not sure how it fits here mathematically.

http://historyreligionandtruth.com/?q=Chaos%20Theory

http://historyreligionandtruth.com/?q=node/132

The way I understand this is that entropy is the cause of everything, life is the process of evolution of complexity and math is how we measure reality, visualize, and then say something is real. The weather and a human being are both examples of the same reality and function by the same rules, rules that appear to us as chaotic because our math falls apart in large numbers .

We can predict the weather for no more than seven days because the underlying complexity goes beyond the capacity of our math, but it is predictable and deterministic. Our math simply fails, and we don't know why. The same is true with everything, beyond the space between 0 and 1, the instant or moment, axioms can't be proven, all our statements are only a probability.  That is why ...

7. "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent."

This sentence becomes even more extreme in quantum physics.